How to be happy though married

HOW TO BE 'HAPPY THOUGH
MARRIED

) "1

Ho

CHAPTER I.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED*

How delicious is the winning
Of a kiss at love's beginning,
When two mutual hearts are sighing
For the knot there's no untying^!

T. CAMPBELL.

Deceive not thyself by over-expecting happiness in the
married state. Look not therein for contentment greater
than God will give, or a creature in this world can receive,
namely, to be free from all inconveniences. Marriage
is not like the hill Olympus, wholly clear, without
clouds.— FULLER.

" How to be happy though married." This was the
quaint title of one of Skelton's sermons, which would
certainly cause a momentary cloud of indignation, not
to say of alarm, to pass over the minds of a newly-
married couple, should they discover it when skimming
through a collection of old volumes on the first wet
day of their honeymoon.

"Two young persons thrown together by chance,
or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, re-
ciprocate civilities, and go home to dream of each
other. Finding themselves rather uncomfortable apart,
they think they necessarily must be happy together."
But there is no such necessity. In marriage the
measure of our happiness is usually in proportion to
our deserts.

No man e'er gained a happy life by chance,
Or yawned it into being with a wish.

This, however, is just what many novices think they
can do in reference to matrimony. They fancy that

6 HOW*TQ''BE HAUPY. THOUGH MARRIED.

it has a magic power of confeiiing happiness almost
in spite "of themselves,-' and ?re. quite surprised when
experience teaches them that domestic felicity, like
everything else worth having, must be worked for —
must be earned by patient endurance, self-restraint,
and loving consideration for the tastes, and even for
the faults, of him or her with whom life is to be
lived.

And yet before the first year of married life has
ended, most people discover that Skelton's subject,
" How to be happy though married," was not an un-
practical one. Then they know that the path upon
which' they have entered may be strewn with thorns
instead of with roses, unless mutual forbearance and
mutual respect guard the way. The old bachelor who
said that marriage was " a very harmless amusement "
would not have pronounced such an unconditional
judgment had he known more about it. Matrimony
is a harmless and a happy state only when careful
precaution is taken to defend the domain of the
affections from harshness and petulance, and to avoid
certain moral and physical pitfalls.

Like government, marriage must be a series of com-
promises; and however warm the love of both parties
may be, it will very soon cool unless they learn the
golden rule of married life, "To bear and to forbear/'
In matrimony, as in so many other things, a good
beginning is half the battle. But how easily may
good beginnings be frustrated through infirmity of
temper and other causes, and then we must "tread
those steps with sorrow which we might have trod with

joy."

"I often think," says Archdeacon Farrar, "that most
of us in life are like many of those sightseers who
saunter through this (Westminster) Abbey. Their listless
look upon its grandeur and its memorials furnishes an
illustration of the aspect which we present to higher
powers as we wander restlessly through the solemn

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 7

minster-aisles of life. . . . We talk of human misery ;
how many of us derive from life one-tenth part of what
God meant to be its natural blessedness? Sit out in
the open air on a summer day, and how many of us
have trained ourselves to notice the sweetness and the
multiplicity of the influences which are combining for
our delight — the song of birds; the breeze beating balm
upon the forehead; the genial warmth; -the delicate
odour of ten thousand flowers ? "

What is said here of life in general. is also true of
married life. We go through the temple of Hymen
without noticing, much less appreciating, its beauty.
Certainly few people gain as much happiness from
their marriage as they might. They expect to find
happiness without taking any trouble to make it, or
they are so selfishly preoccupied that they cannot
enjoy. In this way many a husband and wife only
begin to value, each other when death is at hand to
separate them.

In married life sacrifices must be ever going on if
we would be happy. It is the power to make another
glad which lights up our own face with joy. It is the
power to bear another's burden which lifts the load
from our own heart. To foster with vigilant, self-
denying care the development of another's life is the
surest way to bring into our own joyous, stimulating
energy. Bestow nothing, receive nothing ; sow nothing,
reap nothing; bear no burden of others, be crushed
under your own. If many people are miserable though
married, it is because they ignore the great law of
self-sacrifice that runs through all nature, and expect
blessedness from receiving rather than from giving.
They reckon that they have a right to so much
service, care, and tenderness from those who love
them, instead of asking how much service, care, and
tenderness they can give.

No knowledge is so well worth acquiring as the
science of living harmoniously for the most part of a

* HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

life with another, which we might take as a definition
of matrimony. This science teaches us to avoid fault-
finding, bothering, boring, and other tormenting habits.
"These are only trifling faults," you say. Yes, but
trifles produce domestic misery, and domestic misery
is no trifle.

Since trifles make the sum of human things,
And half our misery from those trifles springs,
Oh ! let the ungentle spirit learn from thence,
A small unkindness is a great offence.
To give rich gifts perhaps we wish in vain,
But all may shun the guilt of giving pain.

Husband and wife should burn up in the bonfire of
first-love all hobbies and " little ways " that could
possibly prevent home from being sweet. How happy
people are, though married, when they can say of
each other what Mrs. Hare says of her husband in
Memorials of a Quiet Life: "I never saw anybody
so easy to live with, by whom the daily petty things
of life were passed over so lightly ; and then there is
a charm in the refinement of feeling which is not to
be told in its influence upon trifles."

A married pair should be all the world to each other.
Sydney Smith's definition of marriage is well known :
- " It resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they
cannot be separated, often moving in opposite directions,
yet always punishing any one who comes between them."
Certainly those who go between deserve to be punished ;
and in whatever else they may differ, married people
should agree to defend themselves from the well-meant,
perhaps, but irritating interference of friends. Above
all, they should remember the proverb about the home-
washing of soiled linen, for, as old Fuller said, "Jars
concealed are half reconciled; while, if generally known,
*tis a double task to stop the breach at home and men's
mouths abroad."

,Why should love-making end with courtship, and

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 9

of what use are conquests if they are not guarded?
If the love of a life-partner is of far more value than
our perverse fancies, it is the part of wisdom to restrain
these in order to keep that. A suggestion was recently
made from an American pulpit that there was room for
a new society which should teach husband and wife
their duty to each other. "The first article of the
constitution should be that any person applying for
membership should solemnly covenant and agree that
throughout married life he or she would carefully observe
and practice all courtesy, thoughtfulness, and unselfish-
ness that belong to what is known as the * engagement '
period. The second article should be that neither
member of a conjugal partnership should listen to a single
word of criticism of the other member from any relative
whatever, even should the words of wisdom drop from
the lips of father, mother, brother, or sister. The rules
of the new society need not extend beyond these two,
for there would be nothing in the conduct of members
in good standing to require other special attention."

The wife, on her part, ought not to be less desirous
than she was in the days of courtship of winning her
husband's admiration, merely because she now wears
upon her finger a golden pledge of his love. Why
should she give up those pretty wiles to seem fair and
pleasant in his eyes, that were suggested in love-dreams ?
Instead of lessening her charms, she should endeavour
to double them, in order that home may be to him who
has paid her the greatest compliment in his power, the
dearest and brightest spot upon earth — one to which he
may turn for comfort when sick of business and the
weary ways of men generally.

George Eliot tells us that marriage must be a relation
either of sympathy or of conquest ; and it is undoubtedly
true that much of the matrimonial discord that exists
arises from the mutual struggle for supremacy. They
go to church and say " I will," and then, perhaps, on
the way home, one or other says "I won't," and that

io HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED,

begins it. " What is the reason," said one Irishman to
another, " that you and your wife are always disagree-
ing ? " " Because," replied Pat, " we are both of one
mind — she wants to be master and so do I." How shall
a man retain his wife's affections ? It is by not returning
them? Certainly not. The secret of conjugal felicity
is contained in this formula : demonstrative affection
and self-sacrifice. A man should not only love his wife
dearly, but he should tell her that he loves her, and
tell her very often, and each should be willing to yield,
not once or twice, but constantly, and as a practice to
the other. Selfishness crushes out love, and most of
the couples who are living without affection for each
other, with cold and dead hearts, with ashes where
there should be a bright and holy flame, have destroyed
themselves by caring too much for themselves and too
little for each other.

Each young couple that begins housekeeping on the
right basis brings the Garden of Eden before man once
more. There are they, two, alone ; love raises a wall
between them and the outer world. There is no serpent
there — and, indeed, he need never come, nor does he,
so long as Adarn and Eve keep him at bay ; but too
often the hedge of love is broken, just a little, by small
discourtesies, little inattentions, small incivilities, that
gradually but surely become wider and wider holes,
until there is no hedge at all, and all sorts of monsters
enter in and riot there.

Out of the very ripeness of life's core,
A worm was bred.

The only real preservative against this worm is true
religion. Unhappily for themselves the healthy and
young sometimes fancy that they need not think of this.
They forget that religion is required to ennoble and
sanctify this present life, and are too liable to associate
it exclusively with the contemplation of death. "So

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED, n

'a cried out — God, God, God ! three or four times : now
I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God ; I
hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such
thoughts yet." This advice, which Mrs. Quickly gave
to Falstaff on his deathbed, reflects the thoughts of
many people, but it was not sound advice. Certainly
it would be cruel rather than kind to advise a young pair
who have leaped into the dark of married life not to
think of God. (He is a Saviour from trouble rather than
a troubler, and the husband and wife who never try to
serve Him will not be likely to serve each other or to
gain much real happiness from their marriage.^

The following is related in the memoirs of Mary
Somerville. When a girl she and her brother had
coaxed their timid mother to accompany them for a
sail. The day was sunny, but a stiff breeze was blowing,
and presently the boat began to toss and roll. " George,"
Mrs. Fairfax called to the man in charge, " this is an
awful storm) I fear we are in great danger; mind
how you steer ; remember I trust in you ! " He replied,
"Dinna trust in me, leddy; trust in God Almighty,"
In terror the lady exclaimed, " Dear me, is it come to
that ! " To that it ought to come on the day of
marriage quite as much as on the day of death. It is
not only in times of danger and distress that we want
God's presence, but in the time of our well-being, when
all goes merry as a marriage bell. Live away from
Him, and the happiness you enjoy to-day may become
your misery to-morrow*

12 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.
CHAPTER II.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE — MARRIED?

A bitter and perplexed " What shall I do?"

COLERIDGE.

Then, why pause with indecision
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian ?

LONGFELLOW.

To be or not to be — married? That is the question
that may occur to readers of the last chapter. If so
much precaution and preparation are necessary to
ensure a harmless, not to say a happy marriage, is the
game worth the candle ? Is it not better for the un-
married to cultivate the contented state of mind of that
old Scotch lady who said, " I wadna gie my single life
for a* the double anes I ever saw ? "

The controversy as to whether celibacy or wedlock be
the happier state is a very old one, perhaps as old as
what may be called the previous question — whether
life itself be worth living. Some people are very
ingenious in making themselves miserable, no matter
in what condition of life they find themselves : and there
are a sufficient number of querulous celibates as well as
over-anxious married people in the world to make us see
the wisdom of the sage's words : " Whichever you do,
whether you marry or abstain, you will repent." If
matrimony has more pleasures and celibacy fewer pains,
if loving be " a painful thrill, and not to love more painful
still," it is impossible exactly to balance the happiness
of these two states, containing respectively more pleasure
and more pain, and less pleasure and less pain. M If
hopes are dupes, fears may be liars."

It has been said of the state of matrimony that those
who are in desire to get out, and those who are out,

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 13

wish to enter. The more one thinks on the matter in
this spirit, the more one becomes convinced that the
Scotch minister was by no means an alarmist who thus
began an extempore marriage service: "My friends,
marriage is a blessing to a few, a curse to many, and
a great uncertainty to all. Do ye venture?" After
a pause, he repeated, with great emphasis, " Do ye
venture?" No objection being made to the venture,
he then said, " Let's proceed."

With the opinion of this Scotch minister we may
compare that of Lord Beaconsfield : "I have often
thought that all women should marry, and no men."
The Admiral of Castile said, that " he who marries a
wife and he who goes to war must necessarily submit
to everything that may happen." There will, however,
always be young men and maidens who believe that
nothing can happen in matrimony that is worse than
never to be married at all.

When Joseph Alleine, who was a great student,
married, he received a letter of congratulation from an
old college friend, who said that he had some thoughts
of following his example, but wished to be wary, and
would therefore take the freedom of asking him to
describe the inconveniences of a married life. Alleine
replied, "Thou would'st know the inconveniences of a
wife, and I will tell thee. First of all, whereas thou
rises constantly at four in the morning, or before, she
will keep thee till six ; secondly, whereas thou usest to
study fourteen hours in the day, she will bring thee to
eight or nine ; thirdly, whereas thou are wont to forbear
one meal at least in the day for thy studies, she will
bring thee to thy meat. If these are not mischief
enough to affright thee, I know not what thou art"
Most people will think that such "inconveniences of
a wife" are the strongest arguments in her favour.
Nearly all men, but especially bookish men, require the
healthy common-sense influence of women to guide
and sweetly order their lives. If we make fools of

14 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

ourselves with them, we are even greater fools without
them.

With whatever luxuries a bachelor may be surrounded,
he will always find his happiness incomplete unless he
has a wife and children to share it.

Who does not sympathise with Leigh Hunt ? When
in prison he wrote to the governor requesting that
"his wife and children might be allowed to be with
him in the daytime : that his happiness was bound
tip in them, and that a separation in respect of abode
would be almost as bad to him as tearing his body
asunder."

To. be, or not to be — married ? This is one of those
questions in reference to which the speculative reason
comes to no certain conclusion. Solvttur ambulando.
It ha§ nearly distracted some men, whose minds were
sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. They have
almost died of indecision, like the donkey between two
exactly similar bundles of hay. An individual of this
description, who was well known to the writer, after
dropping into a letter pillar a proposal to a young lady,
was seen a few moments afterwards endeavouring to
extract with a stick the precious document. Failing
in his attempt, the wretched mortal walked round and
round the pillar, tortured with the recurrence of reasons
against matrimony which he had lately argued away.
Fortunately for both parties the lady refused the
tempting offer.

And yet this hesitating lover was, perhaps, but a
type of many young men of the age. Nowadays, it is
often said they are giving up matrimony as if it were
some silly old habit suited only to their grandfathers
and grandmothers. The complaint is an old one. It
was brought against Pagan youths more than eighteen
hundred years ago, and yet the world has got along.
But can all the blame be justly thrown upon the one
sex to the exclusion of the other? Have thoughtless
extravagance and ignorance of household economy on

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. • 15

the part of the ladies no share in deterring the men
from making so perilous a venture ?

It is said that years ago in Burmah the ladies of the

; Court met in formal parliament to decide what should

(be done to cure the increasing aversion of young men

Jfo marriage. Their decision was a wise one. They

'•altered, by an order from the palace, the style of dress

to be worn by all honest women, reduced the ornaments

to be assumed by wives to the fewest and simplest

possible, and ordained that at a certain age women

v should withdraw from the frivolities of fashion and of

the fashionable world. Success was the result, and

young Burmah went up in a body to the altar.

Robert Burton, in his very quaint and interesting
Anatomy of Melancholy gives an abstract of all that
may be said "to mitigate the miseries of marriage/'
by Jacobus de Voragine. " Hast thou means ? thou
hast one to keep and increase it. Hast none? thou
hast one to help to get it. Art in prosperity? thine
happiness is doubled. Art in adversity ? she'll comfort,
assist, bear a part of thy burden to make it more
tolerable. Art at home ? she'll drive away melancholy.
Art abroad? she looks after thee going from home,
wishes for thee in thine absence, and joyfully welcomes
thy return. There's nothing delightsome without society,
no society so sweet as matrimony. The band of con-
jugal love is adamantine. The sweet company of
kinsmen increaseth, the number of parents is doubled,
of brothers, sisters, nephews. Thou art made a father
by a fair and happy issue. Moses curseth the barren-
ness of matrimony — how much more a single life ! "
" All this," says Burton, " is true ; but how easy a
matter is it to answer quite opposite ! To exercise
myself I will essay. Hast thou means ? thou hast one
to spend it. Hast none? thy beggary is increased.
Art in prosperity? thy happiness is ended. Art ia
adversity? like Job's wife, she'll aggravate thy misery,
vex thy soul, make thy burden intolerable. Art at

i6 • HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

home? she'll scold thee out of doors. Art abroad?
If thou be wise, keep thee so ; she'll perhaps graft
horns in thine absence, scowl on thee coming home.
Nothing gives more content than solitariness, no
solitariness like this of a single life. The band of
marriage is adamantine — no hope of loosing it; thoi:
art undone. Thy number increaseth ; thou shalt be
devoured by thy wife's friends. Paul commends
marriage, yet he prefers a single life. Is marriage
honourable ? What an immortal crown belongs to
virginity ! Tis a hazard both ways, I confess, to live
single, or to marry ; it may be bad, it may be good \
as it is a cross and calamity on the one side, so 'tis
a sweet delight, an incomparable happiness, a blessed
estate, a most unspeakable benefit, a sole content, on
the other — 'tis all in the proof."

In balancing this question Lord Bacon takes higher
ground, and thinks of the effect of marriage and celibacy
on a man in his public capacity. " He that hath wife
and children hath given hostages to Fortune, for they
are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or
mischief. Certainly the best works, and of the greatest
merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried
or childless men, which, both in affection and means,
have married and endowed the public. Yet it were
great reason that those that have children should have
greatest care of future times, unto which they know they
must transmit their dearest pledges. Some there are who,
though they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end
with themselves, and account future times impertinences.
Nay, there are some other that account wife and children
but as bills of charges. Nay more, there are some
foolish, rich, covetous men that take a pride in having
no children because they may be thought so much the
richer. For perhaps they have heard some talk : ' Such
an one is a great rich man ; ' and another except to it :
' Yea, but he hath a great charge of children/ as if it
were an abatement to his riches. But the most ordinary

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 17

cause of a single life is liberty, especially in certain
self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible
of every restraint, as they will go near to think their
girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles. Un-
married men are best friends, best masters, best servants,
but not always best subjects, for they are light to run
away, and almost all fugitives are of that condition. A
single life doth well with churchmen, for charity will
hardly water the ground where it must first fill a
pool.'1

After all, these enumerations of the comparative
advantages of marriage and celibacy are of little use,
for a single glance of a pair of bright eyes will cause
antimatrimonial arguments to go down like ninepins.
The greatest misogamists have been most severely
wounded when least expecting it by the darts of Cupid.
Such a mishap, according to the anatomist of melancholy
already quoted, had " Stratocles the physician, that
blear-eyed old man. He was a severe woman-hater all
his life, a bitter persecutor of the whole sex; he fore-
swore them all still, and mocked them wheresoever he
came in such vile terms, that if thou hadst heard him
thou wouldst have loathed thine own mother and sisters
for his word's sake. Yet this old doting fool was taken
at last with that celestial and divine look of Myrilla, the
daughter of Anticles the gardener, that smirking wench,
that he shaved off his bushy beard, painted his face,
I curled his hair, wore a laurel crown to cover his bald
pate, and for her love besides was ready to run
mad."

If it be true that " nothing is certain but death and
taxes," we must not seek for mathematical demonstra-
tion that the road we propose to travel on is the right
one when we come to cross-roads in life. A certain
amount of probability ought to make us take either one
or the other, for not to resolve is to resolve. In reference
to such questions as marriage versus celibacy, the choice
of a wife, the choice of a profession, and many others,

i8 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

there must be a certain venture of faith, and in this
unintelligible world there is a rashness which is not
always folly.

There are, of course, many persons who, if they
married, would be guilty of great imprudence, not to
say of downright crime. When, however, two lovers —
we emphasise the word — have sufficient means, are of
suitable age, and are conscious of no moral, intellectual,
or physical impediment, let them marry. It is the
advice of some very wise men. Benjamin Franklin
wrote to a young friend upon his marriage : " I am glad
you are married, and congratulate you most cordially
upon it. You are now in the way of becoming a useful
citizen, and you have escaped the unnatural state of
celibacy for life — the fate of many here who never
intended it, but who, having too long postponed the
change of their condition, find at length that it is too
late to think of it, and so live all their lives in a situation
that greatly lessens a man's value. An odd volume of
a set of books bears not the value of its proportion to
the set. What think you of the odd half of a pair of
scissors ? It can't well cut anything — it may possibly
serve to scrape a trencher ! "

Dr. Johnson says : " Marriage is the best state for
man in general ; and every man is a worse man in
proportion as he is unfit for the married state." Of
marriage Luther observed : " The utmost blessing that
God can confer on a man is the possession of a good
and pious wife, with whom he may live in peace and
tranquillity, to whom he may confide his whole posses-
sions, even his life and welfare." And again he said:
" To rise betimes and to marry young are what no man
ever repents of doing." Shakespeare would not "admit
impediments to the marriage of true minds. }>

The cares and troubles of married life are many, but
are those of single life few ?Y The bachelor has no one
on whom in ail cases he can rely. As a rule his expenses
are as great as those of a married man, his life less

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 19

useful, and certainly it is less cheerful, " What a life
to lead ! " exclaims Cobbett. " No one to talk to
without going from home, or without getting some one
to come to you ; no friend to sit and talk to, pleasant
evenings to pass ! Nobody to share with you your
sorrows or your pleasures ; no soul having a common
interest with you ; all around you taking care of them-
selves and no care of you ! Then as to gratifications,
from which you will hardly abstain altogether — are they
generally of little expense ? and are they attended with
no trouble, no vexation, no disappointment, no jealousy
even? and are they never followed by shame and
remorse? To me no being in this world appears so
wretched as an old bachelor. Those circumstances,
those changes in his person and in his mind, which
in the husband increase rather than diminish the
attentions to him, produce all the want of feeling
attendant on disgust; and he beholds in the conduct
of the mercenary crowd that surround him little besides
an eager desire to profit from that event the approach
of which nature makes a subject of sorrow with
him."

And yet it would be very wrong to hasten young
men in this matter, for however miserable an old
bachelor may be, he is far more happy than either a
bad husband or the husband of a bad wife. What
is one man's meat may be another man's poison.
To some persons we might say, " If you marry you do
well, but if you marry not you do better." In the
case of others marriage may have decidedly the
advantage. Like most other things marriage is good
or bad according to the use or abuse we make of it.
The applause that is usually given to persons on
entering the matrimonial stage is, to say the least,
premature. Let us wait to see how they will play
their parts.

And here we must protest against the foolish and
cowardly ridicule that is sometimes bestowed upon

20 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

elderly men and women who, using the liberty of a
free country, have abstained from marrying. Certainly
some of them could give reasons for spending their
lives outside the temple of Hymen that are far more
honourable than the motives which induced their
foolish detractors to rush in. Some have never found
their other selves, or circumstances prevented the
junction of these selves. And which is more honourable
— a life of loneliness or a loveless marriage? There
are others who have laid down their hopes of wedded
bliss for the sake of accomplishing some good work, or
for the sake of a father, mother, sister, or brother.
In such cases celibacy is an honourable and may be
a praiseworthy state.

To make "old maid" a term of reproach has mis-
chievous results, and causes many an ill-assorted
marriage. Girls have been hurried into marriage by
the dread of being so stigmatised who have repented
the step to their dying day. The sacredness of
marriage and the serious responsibilities it brings are
either ignored altogether or but lightly considered
when marriage is represented as the only profession
for women. There is no truth in Brigham Young's
doctrine that only a woman sealed to a man in marriage
can possibly be saved.

Let mothers teach their daughters that although a
well-assorted marriage based upon mutual love and
esteem may be the happiest calling for a woman, yet
that marriage brings its peculiar trials as well as
special joys, and that it is quite possible for a
woman to be both useful and happy, although youth
be fled, and the crowning joys of life — wife and
motherhood — have passed her by or been voluntarily
surrendered.

But this fact that celibacy has many consolations
need not present the conclusion that as a rule married
life is to be preferred.

" Jeanie," said an old Cameronian to his daughter,

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 21

who was asking his permission to marry — "Jeanie,
it's a very solemn thing to get married. "

"I ken that, father," said the sensible lassie, "but
it's a great deal solemner to be single."

Marriages are made in heaven: matrimony in itself
is good, but there are fools who turn every blessing
into a curse, like the man who said, " This is a good
rope, I'll hang myself with it."

29 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.
CHAPTER III.

MARRIAGE-MADE MEN.

A wife's a man's best peace, who, till he marries,
Wants making up. . . .

She is the good man's paradise, and the bad's
First step to heaven. — SHIRLEY.

Th* ever womanly

Draweth us onward ! — GOETHE.

This is well,

To have a dame indoors, that trims us up,
And keeps us tight. — TENNYSON.

IF there be any man — women are seldom antimatri-
monial bigots — who seriously doubts that the pros in
favour of marriage more than counterbalance the cons,
we commend to his consideration a few historical
instances in which men have been made men in the
highest sense of the word by marriage.

We do not endorse the exaggerated statement of
Richter that " no man can live piously or die righteously
without a wife," but we think that the chances of his
doing so are considerably lessened. It is not good for
a man to live alone with his evil thoughts. The checks
and active duties of marriage are the best antidote,
not only to an impure life, but to the dreaming and
droning of a useless and purposeless one.

Certainly there are some men and women who without
wives or husbands are marriage-made in the sense of
having their love and powers drawn out by interesting
work. They are married to some art or utility, or
instead of loving one they love all. When this last
..is the case they go down into the haunts of evil,
seek out the wretched, and spare neither themselves
nor their money in their Christlike enthusiasm for

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 23

humanity. But the luxury of doing good is by no
means confined to the celibate. On the contrary, the
man with a wife and children in whose goodness and
happiness he rejoices may be much better prepared to
aid and sympathise with the erring and the suffering.
The flood-gates of his affections may have been opened,
and he may have become receptive to influences which
had upon him beforetime little or no effect.

Not a few good and great men have confessed that
they were marriage-made to a very considerable extent.
The following testimony was given by De Tocqueville
in a letter to a friend : " I cannot describe to you the
happiness yielded in the long run by the habitual
society of a woman, in whose soul all that is good in
your own is reflected naturally, and even improved.
When I say or do a thing which seems to me to be
perfectly right, I read immediately in Marie's counten-
ance an expression of proud satisfaction which elevates
me; and so when my conscience reproaches me her
face instantly clouds over. Although I have great
power over her mind, I see with pleasure that she
awes me; and so long as I love her as I do now I
am sure that I shall never allow myself to be drawn into
anything that is wrong."

Many a man has been shown the pathway to heaven
by his wife's practice of piety. "My mercy," says
Bunyanj'^was to light upon a wife whose father and
mother were accounted godly. This woman and I,
though we came together as poor as poor might be
(not having so much household stuff as a dish or a
spoon betwixt us both), yet she had for her part The
Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven and The Practice
of Piety, which her father had left her when he
died." By reading these and other good books,
helped by the kindly influence of his wife, Bunyan
was gradually reclaimed from his evil ways, and led
gently into the way of righteousness.

Nor does this companionship of good wives, which

24 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

enables men to gain " in sweetness and in moral height,'*
cause them in the least degree to lose "the wrestling
thews which throw the world.1' Quite the reverse.
Weak men have displayed real public virtue, and strong
men have been made stronger, because they had by
their side a woman of noble character, who exercised
a fortifying influence on their conduct. Lady Rachel
Russell is one of the many celebrated women who
have encouraged their husbands to suffer and be strong.
She sat beside her husband day after day during his
public trial, taking notes and doing everything to
help him.

In the sixth year of his marriage Baxter was brought
before the magistrates for holding a conventicle, and
was sentenced to be confined in Clerkenwell Gaol.
There he was joined by his wife, who affectionately
nursed him during his imprisonment. " She was never
so cheerful a companion to me," he says, "as in prison,
and was very much against me seeking to be released."

There is a sort of would-be wit which consists in
jesting at the supposed bondage of the married state.
The best answer to this plentiful lack of wit is the fact
that some of the best of men have kissed the shackles
which a wife imposes, and have either thought or said,
" If this be slavery, who'd be free?" Luther, speaking
of his wife, said, " I would not exchange my poverty
with her for all the riches of Croesus without her." In
more recent times the French statesman, M. Guizot,
says in his M&noires: "What I know to-day, at the
end of my race, I have felt when it began, and during
its continuance. Even in the midst of great undertakings
domestic affections form the basis of life, and the most
brilliant career has only superficial and incomplete enjoy-
ments if a stranger to the happy ties of family and
friendship." Not long ago, when speaking of his wife,
Prince Bismarck said, " She it is who has made me
what I am."

And there have been English statesmen who could

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 25

say quite as much. Burke was sustained amid the
anxiety and agitation of public life by domestic felicity.
" Every care vanishes," he said, "the moment I enter
under my own roof!" Of his wife he said that she
was " not made to be the admiration of everybody,
but the happiness of one." A writer in a recent number
of Leisure Hour relates the following of Lord Beaconsfield :
"The grateful affection which he entertained for his
wife, whom he always esteemed as the founder of his
fortunes, is well known. She was in the habit of
travelling with him on almost all occasions. A friend
of the earl and ^of^jhe narrator of the incident was
dining with him, when "one of the party — a Member
of the House for many years, of a noble family, but
rather remarkable for raising a laugh at his buffoonery
than any admiration for his wisdom — had no better
taste or grace than to expostulate with Disraeli for
always taking the viscountess with him. 'I cannot
understand it,' said the graceless man, 'for, you know,
you make yourself a perfect laughing-stock wherever
your wife goes with you.' Disraeli fixed his eyes upon
him very expressively and said, ' I don't suppose you
can understand it, B. — I don't suppose you can under-
stand it, for no one could ever in the last and wildest
excursions of an insane imagination suppose you to
be guilty of gratitude ! ' "

It is true that there have been memorable celibates,
but in the main the world's work has been done by
the married. Fame and reward are powerful incentives,
but they bear no comparison to the influence exercised
by affection.

A man's wife and family often compel him to do his
best ; and, when on the point of despairing, they force
him to fight like a hero, not for himself, but for them.
Curran confessed that when he addressed a court for
the first time, if he had not felt his wife and children
tugging at his gown, he would have thrown up his brief
and relinquished the profession of a lawyer.

26 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

" It is often the case when you see a great man, like
a ship, sailing proudly along the current of renown, that
there is a little tug — his wife — whom you cannot see,
but who is directing his movements and supplying the
motive power/' The truth is well illustrated by the
anecdote told of Lord Eldon, who, when he had
received the Great Seal at the hands of the king, being
about to retire, was addressed by his Majesty with the
words, " Give my remembrance to Lady Eldon." The
Chancellor, in acknowledging the condescension, inti-
mated his ignorance of Lady Eldon's claim to such
a notice. " Yes, yes," the king answered ; " I know
how much I owe to Lady Eldon. I know that you
would have made yourself a country curate, and that
she has made you my Lord Chancellor." Sir Walter
Scott and Daniel O'Connell, at a late period of their
lives, ascribed their success in the world principally to
their wives.

When Sir Joshua Reynolds — himself a bachelor —
met the sculptor Flaxman shortly after his marriage,
he said to him, "So, Flaxman, I am told you are
married ; if so, sir, I tell you you are ruined for an
artist." Flaxman went home, sat down beside his
wife, took her hand in his, and said, " Ann, I am
ruined for an artist." "How so, John? How has it
happened? and who has done it?" "It happened,"
he replied, " in the church, and Ann Denman has
done it." He then told her of Sir Joshua's remark —
whose opinion was well known, and had often been
expressed, that if students would excel they must bring
the whole powers of their mind to bear upon their
art, from the moment they rose until they went to bed ;
and also, that no man could be a great artist unless he
studied the grand works of Raphael, Michael Angelo,
and others, at Rome and Florence. " And I," said
Flaxman, drawing up his little figure to its full height,
" / would be a great artist." " And a great artist you
shall be," said his wife, "and visit -Rome, too, if that

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 27

be really necessary to make you great." "But how?"
asked Flaxman. " Work and economise? rejoined the
brave wife ; " I will never have it said that Ann Denman
ruined John Flaxman for an artist." And so it was
determined by the pair that the journey to Rome was
to be made when their means would admit. " I will
go to Rome," said Flaxman, "and show the President
that wedlock is for a man's good rather than his harm ;
and you, Ann, shall accompany me.'*

After working for five years, aided by the untiring
economy of his wife, Flaxman actually did accomplish
his journey. On returning from Rome, where he spent
seven years, conscious of his indebtedness to his wife,
he devised an original gift as a memorial of his domestic
happiness. He caused a little quarto book to be made,
containing some score or so of leaves, and with pen and
pencil proceeded to fill and embellish it. On the first
page is drawn a dove with an olive branch in her
mouth ; an angel is on the right and an angel on the
left, and between is written, " To Ann Flaxman " ; below,
two hands are clasped as at an altar, two cherubs bear
a garland, and there follows an inscription to his wife,
introducing the subject. Instead of finding his genius
maimed by his alliance with Ann Denman, this eminent
sculptor was ever ready to acknowledge that his
subsequent success was in a great part marriage-made.

It was through the eyes of his wife that Huber, the
great authority on bees, who was blind from his seven-
teenth year, conducted his observations and studies.
He even went so far as to declare that he should be
miserable were he to regain his eyesight. "I should
not know," he said, "to what extent a person in my
situation could be beloved; besides, to me my wife
is always young, fresh, and pretty, which is no light
matter."

Sir William Hamilton of Edinburgh found his wife
scarcely less helpful, especially after he had been
stricken by paralysis through overwork. When he was

28 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

elected Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, and had
no lectures on stock, his wife sat up with him night
after night to write out a fair copy of the lectures from
the rough sheets which he had drafted in the adjoining
room. " The number of pages in her handwriting still
preserved is," said Sir William's biographer, " perfectly
marvellous."

Equally effective as a literary helper was Lady Napier,
the wife of Sir William Napier, historian of the
Peninsular War. She translated and epitomised the
immense mass of original documents, many of them
in cipher, on which it was in a great measure founded.
When Wellington was told of the art and industry she
had displayed in deciphering King Joseph's portfolios,
and the immense mass of correspondence taken at
Vittoria, he at first would hardly believe it, adding :
* ' I would have given ^20,000 to any person who
could have done this for me in the Peninsula." Sir
William Napier's handwriting being almost illegible,
Lady Napier made out his rough interlined manuscript,
which he himself could scarcely read, and wrote out a
fair copy for the printer; and all this vast labour she
undertook and accomplished, according to the testimony
of her husband, without having for a moment neglected
the care and education of a large family.

The help and consolation that Hood received from his
wife during a life that was a prolonged illness is one of
the most affecting things in biography. He had such
confidence in her judgment that he read and reread
and corrected with her assistance all that he wrote. He
used to trust to her ready memory for references and
quotations. Many wives deserve, but few receive, such
an I.O.U. as that which the grateful humorist gave to
his wife in one of his letters when absent from her side.
" I never was anything, Dearest, till I knew you, and
I have been a better, happier, and more prosperous
man ever since. Lay by that truth in lavender,
Sweetest, and remind me of it when I fail. I am writing

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 29

warmly and fondly, but not without good cause. . . .
Perhaps there is an afterthought that, whatever may
befall me, the wife of my bosom will have the
acknowledgment of her tenderness, worth, excellence —
all that is wifely or womanly — from my pen."

Mr. Froude says of Carlyle's wife that " her hardest
work was a delight to her when she could spare her
husband's mind an anxiety or his stomach an indigestion.
While he was absorbed in his work and extremely
irritable as to every ailment or discomfort, her life was
devoted to shield him in every possible way." In the
inscription upon her tombstone Carlyle bore testimony
that he owed to his wife a debt immense of gratitude.
"In her bright existence she had more sorrows than
are common, but also a soft invincibility, a capacity of
discernment, and a noble loyalty of heart which are rare.
For forty years she was the true and loving helpmate
of her husband, and by act and word unweariedly
forwarded him as none else could in all of worthy that
he did or attempted. She died at London, April 2ist,
1866, suddenly snatched away from him, and the light
of his life as if gone out."

What an influence women have exercised upon
teachers of religion and philosophy ! When no one else
would encourage Mahomet, his wife Kadijah listened to
him with wonder, with doubt. At length she answered :
"Yes, it was true this that he said." We can fancy, as
does Carlyle, the boundless gratitude of Mahomet, and
how, of all the kindnesses she had done him, this of
believing the earnest struggling word he now spoke was
the greatest. " It is certain," says Novalis, " my con-
viction gains infinitely the moment another soul will
believe in it." It is a boundless favour. He never
forgot this good Kadijah. Long afterwards, Ayesha,
his young favourite wife, a woman who indeed dis-
tinguished herself among the Moslem by all manner of
qualities, through her whole long life, this young brilliant
Ayesha was one day questioning him : " Now am I not

30 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

better than Kadijah? she was a widow; old, and had
lost her looks : you love me better than you did her ? "
" No, by Allah ! " answered Mahomet : " No, by Allah !
She believed in me when none else would believe. In
the whole world I had but one friend, and she was
that ! "

It will suffice to hint at the scientific value of the
little that has been disclosed respecting Madame
Clothilde de Vaux in elucidating the position of Auguste
Comte as a teacher. Some may think that John Stuart
Mill first taught his wife and then admired his own
wisdom in her. His own account of the matter is very
different, as we learn from the dedication of his essay
On Liberty :

"To the beloved and deplored memory of her who
was the inspirer, and in part the author, of all that
is best in my writings — the friend and wife whose
exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest
incitement, and whose approbation was my chief reward
— I dedicate this volume. Like all that I have written
for many years, it belongs as much to her as to me;
but the work as it stands has had, in a very insufficient
degree, the inestimable advantage of her revision ; some
of the most important portions having been reserved for
a more careful re-examination, which they are now never
destined to receive. Were I but capable ot interpret-
ing to the world one-half the great thoughts and
noble feelings which are buried in her grave, I
should be the medium of a greater benefit to it than
is ever likely to arise from anything that I can write,
unprompted and unassisted by her all but unrivalled
wisdom."

In a speech upon women's rights, a lady orator is
said to have exclaimed, " It is well known that Solomon
owed his wisdom to the number of his wives ! " This
is too much : nevertheless, Sir Samuel Romilly gave
the experience of many successful men when he said that
there was nothing by which through life he had more

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 31

profited than by the just observations and the good
opinion of his wife.

Most people are acquainted with husbands who have
lost almost all self-reliance and self-help because their
wives have been only too helpful to them. Trollope
and George Eliot faithfully portrayed real life in their
stories when they put the reins into the hands of good
wives and made them drive the domestic coach, to the
immense advantage and comfort of the husbands, who
never suspected the real state of the case. No man has
so thoroughly as Trollope brought into literature the
idea which women have of men — creatures that- .have
to be looked after as grown-up little boys ; interesting,
piquant, indispensable, but shiftless, headstrong, and
at bottom absurd.

But this consciousness which good wives have of the
helplessness of husbands renders them all the more
valuable in their eyes. Before Weinsberg surrendered
to its besiegers, the women of the place asked permission
of the captors to remove their valuables. The per-
mission was granted, and shortly after the women were
seen issuing from the gates carrying their husbands on
their shoulders. Indeed it would be impossible to relate
a tenth part of the many ways in which good wives
have shown affection for and actively assisted their
wedded lords. Knowing this to be the case, we were
not surprised to read some time since the following piece
of Irish news: "An inquiry was held at Mullingar on
Wednesday respecting Mr. H. Smythe's claim of
;£io,ooo as compensation for the loss of his wife, who
was shot whilst returning from church. The claim was
made under the nineteenth section of the Crime
Prevention Act, Ireland." The result of the inquiry we
do not know, but for ourselves we think that ;£ 10,000
would barely compensate for the loss of a really good
article in wives.

Some one told an old bachelor that a friend had gone
blind. "Let him marry, then," was the crusty reply;

32 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

" let him marry, and if that doesn't open his eyes, then
his case is indeed hopeless." But this, we must
remember, was not the experience of a married man.

A friend was talking to Wordsworth of De Quincey's
articles about him. Wordsworth begged him to stop ;
he hadn't read them, and did not wish to ruffle himself
about them. "Well," said the friend, " I'll tell you
only one thing he says, and then we'll talk of other
things. He says your wife is too good for you." The
old poet's dim eyes lighted up, and he started from his
chair crying with enthusiasm, " And that's true ! There
he's right ! " his disgust and contempt visibly
moderating. Many a man whose faith in womankind
was weak before marriage can a few years afterwards
sympathise most fully with this pathetic confession of
the old poet.

A Scotch dealer, when exhorting his son to practice
honesty on the ground of its being the "best policy/'
quietly added, " I hae tried baitfy" So it is in reference
to matrimony and celibacy. -The majority of those
who have " tried baith " are of opinion that the former
is the best policy^

It would be 'absurd to assert that the marriage
state is free from care and anxiety; but what of that?
Is not care and trouble the condition of any and every
state of life ? He that will avoid trouble must avoid
the world. " Marriage," says Dr. Johnson, " is not
commonly unhappy, but as life is unhappy." And the
summing up, so to speak, of this great authority is well
known—" Marriage has many pains, but celibacy no
pleasures."

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 33
CHAPTER IV

THE CHOICE OF A WIFE.

Go, draw aside the curtains, and discover
The several caskets to this noble prince : —
Now make your choice. — SHAKESPEARE.

If, as Plutarch adviseth, one must eat modiutn satis, a
bushel of salt, with him before he choose his friend, what
care should be had in choosing a wife — his second self!
How solicitous should he be to know her qualities and
behaviour ! and, when he is assured of them, not to prefer
birth, fortune, beauty, before bringing up and good
conditions. — ROBERT BURTON.

WHETHER a man shall be made or marred by marriage
greatly depends upon the choice he makes of a wife.
Nothing is better than a good woman, nor anything
worse than a bad one.

The idea of the great electrician Edison's marrying
was first suggested by an intimate friend, who made
the point that he needed a mistress to preside over
his large house, which was being managed by a house-
keeper and several servants. Although a very shy
man, he seemed pleased with the proposition, and
timidly inquired whom he should marry. The friend
somewhat testily replied, " Any one ; " that a man who
had so little sentiment in his soul as to ask such a
question ought to be satisfied with anything that wore
a petticoat and was decent.

Woe to the man who follows such careless advice as
this, and marries "any one," for what was said by the
fox to the sick lion might be said with equal truth to
Hymen; "I notice that there are many prints of feet
entering your cave, but I see no trace of any returning."
Before taking the irrevocable step choose well, for
B your choice though brief is yet endless. And, first,

34 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

we make the obvious suggestion that it is useless to
seek perfection in a wife, even though you may fancy
yourself capable of giving an adequate return as did
the author of the following advertisement : " Wanted
by a Young Gentleman just beginning Housekeeping,
a Lady between Eighteen and Twenty-five Years of
Age, with a good Education, and a Fortune not less
than Five Thousand Pounds; Sound Wind and Limb,
Five Feet Four Inches without her shoes; Not Fat,
nor yet too lean ; Good Set of Teeth ; No Pride nor
Affectation ; Not very Talkative, nor one that is deemed
a Scold ; but of a spirit to Resent an Affront ; of a
Charitable Disposition ; not Over-fond of Dress, though
always Decent and Clean ; that will entertain her
Husband's Friends with Affability and Cheerfulness,
and Prefer his Company to Public Diversions and
gadding about; one who can keep his secrets, that
he may open his Heart to her without reserve on all
Occasions; that can extend domestic Expenses with
Economy, as Prosperity advances, without Ostentation ;
and Retrench them with Cheerfulness, if occasion should
require. Any Lady disposed to Matrimony, answering
this Description, is desired to direct for Y. Z., at the
Baptist's Head Coffee-house, Aldermanbury. N.J3. —
The Gentleman can make adequate Return, and is,
in every Respect, deserving a Lady with the above
Qualifications."

This reminds us of the old lady who told her steward
she wished him to attend a neighbouring fair in order
to buy her a cow. She explained to him that it must be
young, well-bred, fine in the skin, a strawberry in colour,
straight in the back, and not given to breaking through
fences when it smelt clover on the other side ; above
all. it was not to cost more than ten pounds. The
steward, who was a Scotchman, and a privileged old
servant, bowed his head and replied reverently, " Then,
my lady, I think ye had better kneel down and pray for
her, for ye'll get her nae other way, I'm thinkin',"

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 35

While the possession of a little money is by no means
a drawback, those do not well consult their happiness
who marry for money alone.

In many a marriage made for gold,

The bride is bought — and the bridegroom sold.

Though Cupid is said to be blind, hejs a, .better .. guide
than the rules of arithmetic. We have false ideas of
happiness. What will make me happy — contented ?
" Oh, if I were rich, I should be happy ! " A gentle-
man who was enjoying the hospitalities of the great
millionaire and king of finance, Rothschild, as he
looked at the superb appointments of the mansion, said
to his host, " You must be a happy man ! n " Happy ! "
said he, " happy ! I happy — happy ! " " Aye, happy ! "
" Let us change the subject." John Jacob Astor, of
America, was also told that he must be a very happy
man, being so rich. "Why," said he, "would you
take care of my property for your board and clothes ?
That's all I get for it." In taking a dowry with a wife
"thou losest thy liberty," says an old writer: "she
will ride upon thee, domineer as she list, wear the
breeches in her oligarchical government, and beggar
thee besides."

(Better to have a fortune in your wife than with her.)
"My wife has made my fortune," said a gentleman
of great possessions, "by her thrift, prudence, and
cheerfulness, when I was just beginning." " And
mine has lost my fortune," answered his companion
bitterly, "by useless extravagance, and repining when
I was doing well.** The girl who brings to her husband
a large dowry may also bring habits of luxury learned
hi a rich home. She may be almost as incapable of
understanding straitened circumstances as was the lady
of the court of Louis XVI., who, on hearing of people
starving, exclaimed, " Poor creatures 1 No brfead to eat !
Then let them eat cakes I "

36 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

Nor is it wise to marry for beauty alone:) as even
the finest landscape, seen daily, becomes monotonous, so
does the most beautiful face, unless a beautiful nature
shines through it. The beauty of to-day becomes
commonplace to-morrow; whereas goodness, displayed
through the most ordinary features, is perennially
lovely. Moreover, this kind of beauty improves with
age, and time ripens rather than destroys it. No man
is so much to be pitied as the husband of a " profes-
sional beauty." Yet beauty, when it betokens health,
or when it is the outward and visible sign of an in-
ward and spiritual grace, is valuable, and has a great
power of winning affection.

Above all things do not marry a fool who will shame
you and reveal your secrets. For ourselves we do not
believe the first part at least of Archbishop Whately's
definition of woman : " A creature that does not reason,
and that pokes the fire from the top." The wife who
does not and cannot make use of reason to overcome
the daily difficulties of domestic life, and who can in no
sense be called the companion of her husband, is a mate
who hinders rather than helps. Sooner or later a house-
hold must fall into the hands of its women, and sink or
swim according to their capacities. It is hard enough
for a man to be married to a bad woman ; but for a man
who marries a foolish woman there is no hope.

" One must love their friends with all their failings, but
it is a great failing to be ill," and therefore unless you
are one of those rare men who would never lose patience
with a wife always in pain, when choosing you should
think more of a healthy hue than of a hectic hue, and
far more of good lungs than of a tightly-laced waist.
"See that she chews her food well, and sets her foot
down firmly on the ground when she walks, and you're
all right."

As regards the marriageable age of women we may
quote the following little conversation : " No woman is
worth looking at after thirty," said young Mrs. A.,

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 37

a bride with all the arrogant youthfulness- of twenty-one
summers. " Quite true, my dear," answered Lady D.,
a very pretty woman some ten or fifteen years older;
"nor worth listening to before."

Please yourself, good sir ! only do not marry either
a child or an old woman. Certainly a man should marry
to obtain a friend and companion rather than a cook
and housekeeper ; but yet that girl is a prize indeed who
has so' well prepared herself for the business of wifehood
as to be able to keep not only her husband company,
but her house in good order. " If that man is to be
regarded as a benefactor of his species who makes two
stalks of corn grow where only one grew before, not less
is she to be regarded as a public benefactor who econo-
mises and turns to the best practical account the food
products of human skill and labour."

Formerly a woman's library was limited to a Bible
and a cookery-book. This curriculum has now been
considerably extended, and it is everywhere acknowledged
that "chemistry enough to keep the pot boiling, and
geography enough to know the different rooms in her
house," is not science enough for women. It is surely
not impossible, however, for an intending husband to
find a girl who can make her higher education compatible
with his comforts, who can when necessary bring her
philosophy down to the kitchen. Why should literature
unfit woman for the everyday business of life ? It is not
so with men. You see those of the most cultivated
minds constantly devoting their time and attention to
the most homely objects.

The other day, speaking superficially and uncharitably,
a person said of a woman, whom he knew but slightly,
" She disappoints me utterly. How could her husband
have married her?V She is commonplace and stupid."
" Yes/' said a friend reflectively, " it is strange. She
is not a brilliant woman, she is not even an intellectual
one ; but there is such a thing as a genius for affection,
and she has it. It has been good for her husband that

38 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

he married her." In the sphere of home the graces of
gentleness, of patience, of generosity, are far more valuable
than any personal attractions or mental gifts and accom-
plishments. They contribute more to happiness and are
the source of sympathy and spiritual discernment. For
does not the woman who can love see more and under-
stand more than the most intellectual woman who has
no heart ?

A vacancy in the floor-sweeping department of a public
institution having been advertised, the testimonials to
the intellectual and moral eminence of an old woman
were overwhelming; but ^fter the election it appeared
she had only one arm ! 'Not less unfitted to be a wife
is the woman who, with every other qualification, has
no genius for affection./

' Dress is one of the little things that indicate character.
A refined woman will always look neat; but, on the
other hand, she will not bedizen and bedeck herself with
a view to display. Again, there is no condition of life
in which industry in a wife is not necessary to the happi-
ness of a family. A lazy mistress makes lazy servants,
and, what is worse, a lazy mother makes lazy children.

" But how," asks Cobbett, " is the purblind lover to
ascertain whether she, whose smiles have bereft him of
his senses — how is he to judge whether the beloved object
will be industrious or lazy ? " In answer to this question
several outward and visible signs are suggested, such as
early rising, a lively, distinct utterance, a quick step,
" the labours of the teeth ; for these correspond with those
of the other members of the body, and with the operations
of the mind."

Then we are told of a young man in Philadelphia, who,
courting orie of three sisters, happened to be on a visit
to her, when all the three were present, and when one
said to the others, "I wonder where our needle is."
Upon which he withdrew, as soon as was consistent with
politeness, resolved never to think more of a girl who
possessed a needle only in partnership, and who, it

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 39

appeared, was not too well informed as to the place
where even that share was deposited.

It would be impossible even to allude to every point of
character that should be observed in choosing a wife.
Frugality, or the power to abstain from unnecessary
expenditure, is very important, so is punctuality. As
to good temper, it is a most difficult thing to ascertain
beforehand ; smiles are so easily put on for the lover's
visits. We know the old conundrum — why are ladies
like bells? Because you never know what metal they
are made of until you ring them. An ingenuous girl
thus alluded to the change that is frequently percep-
tible after marriage. " Your future husband seems very
exacting : he has been stipulating for all sorts of things,"
said her mother to her. " Never mind, mamma/1 said
the affectionate girl, who was already dressed for the
wedding ; " these are his last wishes."

There is, however, one way of roughly guessing the
qualifications of a girl for the most responsible position
of a wife. Find out the character of her mother, and
whether the daughter has been a good one and a good ,
sister. Ask yourself, if you respect as well as admire/
her, and remember the words of Fichte : " No true and
enduring love can exist without esteem; every other
draws regret after it, and is unworthy of any noble soul."

Thackeray said of women : " What we (men) want
for the most part is a humble, flattering, smiling, child-
loving, tea-making being, who laughs at our jokes
however old they may be, coaxes and wheedles us in
our humburs, and fondly lies to us through life." And
he says of a wife : " She ought to be able to make your
house pleasant to your friends; she ought to attract
them to it by her grace. Let it be said of her, ' What
an uncommonly nice woman Mrs. Brown is ! ' f Let her
be, if not clever, an appreciator of cleverness.) Above
all, let her have a sense of hiimosar, for a woman without
a laugh in her is tHe greatest bore in existence/' It is,
we think, only very weak men who would wish their

40 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

wives to " fondly lie " to them in this way. Better to
be occasionally wound up like an eight-day clock by
one's wife and made to go right. There is no one who
gives such wise and brave advice as a good wife. She
is another, a calmer and a better self. The heart of
her husband doth safely trust in her, for he knows that
when her criticism is most severe it is spoken in love
and for his own good. Lord Beaconsfield described his
wife as " the most severe of critics, but a perfect wife."

Burns the poet, in speaking of the qualities of a good
wife, divided them into ten parts. Four of these he
gave to good temper, two to good sense, one to wit,
one to beauty — such as a sweet face, eloquent eyes,
a fine person, a graceful carriage ; and the other two
parts he divided amongst the other qualities belonging
to or attending on a wife — such as fortune, connections,
education (that is, of a higher standard than ordinary),
family blood, etc. ; but he said, " Divide those two
degrees as you please, only remember that all these
minor proportions must be expressed by fractions, for
there is not any one of them that is entitled to the
dignity of an integer."

Let us add the famous advice given by Lord Burleigh
to his son : " When it shall please God," said he, " to
bring thee to man's estate, use great providence and
circumspection in choosing thy wife, for from thence
will spring all thy future good or evil. And it is an
action of thy life, like unto a stratagem of war, wherein
a man can err but once. . . . Inquire diligently of
her disposition, and how her parents have been inclined
in their youth. Let her not be poor, how generous
(well-born) soever; for a man can buy nothing in the
market with gentility. Nor choose a base and uncomely
creature altogether for wealth, for it will cause contempt
in others, and loathing in thee. Neither make choice
of a dwarf or a fool, for by the one thou shalt beget a
race of pigmies, while the other will be thy continual
disgrace, and it will yirke (irk) thee to hear her talk.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 41

For thou shalt find it to thy great grief that there is
nothing more fulsome than a she-fool."

The ideal wife is either what Crashaw calls an
" impossible she," or —

Somewhere in the world must be
She that I have prayed to see,
She that Love assigns to me.

But then-
Shall we ever, ever meet ?
Shall I find in thee, my sweet,
Visions true and life complete?

To the old question "Who can ftndt" it may too
often be replied, Who seeks " a virtuous woman " ?
Is she wealthy? is she pretty? is she talented? are
questions asked more frequently than Is she good,
sensible, industrious, affectionate? And yet that man
takes to himself one of the bitterest of earth's curses
who marries carelessly instead of seeking with all
diligence for those qualities in a wife that are the
foundation of lasting happiness.

A minister's wife falling asleep in church, her husband
thus addressed her : " Mrs. B., a' body kens that when
I got ye for my wife I got nae beauty ; yer frien's ken
that I got nae siller ; and if I dinna get God's grace I
shall hae a puir bargain indeed." If men would seek
for wives women with the grace of God, if they would
choose them as they do their clothes, for qualities that
will last, they would get much better bargains.

One reason for this carelessness about the character
of a wife may be found in the prevailing opinion that
there is little or no room for choice in matters matri-
monial. Sir John More (father of the Chancellor, Sir
Thomas) was often heard to say, " I would compare the
multitude of women which are to be chosen for wives
unto a bag full of snakes, having among them a single

42 ROW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

eel. Now, if a man should put his hand into this bag,
he may chance to light on the eel ; but it is a hundred
to one he shall be stung by a snake."

Perhaps the lottery theory of marriage was never
stated more strongly or with greater cynicism ; but is
it true? If it were, to expend care and attention in
choosing a wife would be to labour in vain. If, however,
marriage is by no means such an affair of chance, a
prudent choice may prevent a man from being stung
by a snake, and may give him a goodly eel as his
marriage portion. The important thing to do is to
keep well in mind the fact that a man's prospect of
domestic felicity does_npt depend upon the face, the
fortune, or the accomplishmentsTof "nTs wife, but upon
her character. The son of Sirach says that he would
rather dwell with 'a lion and a dragon than to keep
house with a wicked woman. "He that hath hold of
her is as though he held a scorpion. A loud crying
woman and a scold shall be sought out to drive away
the enemies." On the other hand, "the grace of a
wife delighteth her, husband, and her discretion will
fatten his bones, f A siknt and loving woman is a
gift of the Lord; and there is nothing so much worth
as a mind well instructed." )

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 43
CHAPTER V.

THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND.

How shall I know if I do choose the right ?

SHAKESPEARE.

Go,d, the best maker of marriages, -bless you ! — Ibid.

And while thou livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of
plain and uncoined constancy ; for he perforce must do
thee right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other
places ; for these fellows of infinite tongue, that can
rhyme themselves into ladies' favours, they do always
reason themselves out again. What! a speaker is but
a prater ; a rhyme is but a ballad. A good leg will
fall ; a straight back will stoop ; a black beard will turn
white ; a curled pate will grow bald ; a fair face will
wither ; a full eye will wax hollow ; but a good heart,
Kate, is the sun and the moon ; or, rather, the sun, and
not the moon; for it shines bright, and never changes,
but keeps his course truly. — Ibid.

" THEY that enter into the state of marriage cast a die
of the greatest contingency, and yet of the greatest
interest in t'rie world, next to the last throw for eternity.
Life or death, felicity or a lasting sorrow, are in the
power of marriage. A woman, indeed, ventures most,
for she hath no sanctuary to retire to from an evil
husband ; she must dwell upon her sorrow and hatch
the eggs which her own folly or infelicity hath produced ;
and she is more under it, because her tormentor hath
a warrant of prerogative, and the woman may complain
to God, as subjects do of tyrant princes; but otherwise
she hath no appeal in the causes of unkindness. And
though the man can run from many hours of his sadness,
yet he must return to it again ; and when he sits among
his neighbours he remembers the objection that is in his
bosom and he sighs deeply. The boys and the pedlars

44 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

and the fruiterers shall tell of this man when he is carried
to his grave that he lived and died a poor, wretched
person."

In these words Jeremy Taylor puts before men and
women the issues of choice in matrimony. What, how-
ever, concerns us in this chapter is that "a woman
ventures most" " Love is of man's life a thing apart,
'tis woman's whole existence." How important that
a treasure which is dear as life itself should be placed
in safe keeping ! And yet so blind is love that defects
often seem to be virtues, deformity assumes the style
of beauty, and even hideous vices have appeared under
an attractive form.

In Shakespeare's play Cleopatra speaks of an old
attachment which she had lived to despise as having
arisen in her "salad days," when she was green in
judgment. In extreme youth love is especially blind,
and for this, as well as for other reasons, girls, who are
yet at school, do not consult their best interests when
they allow love to occupy their too youthful minds.
It prevents the enjoyment of happy years of maiden-
hood, and sometimes leads to marriage before the girl
is fit, either physically, mentally, or domestically, for the
cares of married life.

"I believe," says R. W. Dale, of Birmingham, "in
falling in love. The imagination should be kindled and
the heart touched ; there should be enthusiasm and even
romance in the happy months that precede marriage,
and something of the enthusiasm and romance should
remain to the very end of life, or else the home is
wanting in its perfect happiness and grace. But take
my word for it, solid virtues are indispensable to the
security and happiness of a home."

You would not like to live with a liar, with a thief,
with a drunkard, for twenty or thirty years. A lazy
man will make but a weak band or support for his and
your house; so will one deficient in fortitude — that is,
the power to bear pain and trouble without whining.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 45

Beware of the selfish man, for though he may be drawn
out of selfishness in the early weeks of courtship, he will
settle back into it again when the wear and worry of life
come on. And remember that a man may have the
roots of some of these vices in him and yet be ex-
tremely agreeable and good-looking, dress well, and say
very pretty and charming things. " How easy is it for
the proper-false in women's waxen hearts to set their
forms ! "

In their haste to be married many women are too
easily satisfied with the characters of men who may
offer themselves as husbands. They aim at matrimony
in the abstract; not the man, but any man. They
would not engage a servant if all they knew of her
were that she had, as a housemaid lately advertised,
" a fortnight's character from her last place " ; but with
even less information as to their characters they will
accept husbands and vow to love, honour, and obey
them ! In comparison how much more honourable and
how much less unloved and unloving is the spinster's
lot ! Women marry simply for a home because they
have not been trained to fight the battle of life for
themselves, and because their lives are so dull and
stagnant that they think any change must be for the
better.

A friend — let us say Barlow — was describing to
Jerrold the story of his courtship and marriage; how
his wife had been brought up in a convent, and was
on the point of taking the veil, when his presence burst
upon her enraptured sight Jerrold listened to the end
of the story, and by way of comment said, " Ah ! she
evidently thought Barlow better than nun." When
girls have been given work in the world they do not
think that any husband is better than none, and they
have not time to imagine themselves in love with the
first man who proposes. How often is it the case that
people think themselves in love when in fact they are
only idle )

46 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

There are hearts all the better for keeping; they
become mellower and more worth a woman's acceptance
than the crude, unripe things that are sometimes
gathered — as children gather green fruit— to the dis-
comfort of those who obtain them. A husband may
be too young to properly appreciate and take care of
a. wife. And yet perhaps the majority of girls would
rather be a young man's slave than an old man's
darling. "My dear," said a father to his daughter,
" I intend that you should be married, but not that
you should throw yourself away on any wild, worthless
boy ; you must marry a man of sober and mature age.
What do you think of a fine, intelligent husband of
fifty?" "I think two of twenty-five would be better,
papa."

Prophecies as to the probable result of a marriage are
as a rule little to be trusted. It was so in the case of
the celebrated Madame Necker. She had been taken
to Paris to live with a young widow, to whom Necker —
a financier from Geneva — came to pay his addresses.
The story goes that the widow, in order to rid herself
of her admirer, got him to transfer his addresses to
her young companion, saying to herself, "they will
bore each other to death, that will give them something
to do." The happy pair, however, had no such fore-
boding. "I am marrying a man," wrote the lady,
"whom I should believe to be an angel, if his great
love for me did not show his weakness." In his way
the husband was equally satisfied. " I account myself
as happy as it is possible for a man to be," he wrote
to a mutual friend ; and to the end of the chapter there
was no flaw in that matrimonial life.

Never to marry a genius was the advice of Mrs.
Carlyle. " I married for ambition. Carlyle has exceeded
all that my wildest hopes ever imagined of him, and
I am miserable." As the supply of geniuses is very
limited, this advice may seem superfluous. It is not
so, however, for there is enough and to spare of men

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 47

who think they are geniuses, and take liberties accord-
T ingly. These are very often only sons of fond but
foolish mothers, who have persuaded them that they
are not made of common clay, and that the girls who
get them will be blessed. From such a blessing young
women should pray to be delivered.

Perhaps it may be said that though it is easy to write
about choosing a husband, for the majority of English
girls, at least, there is but little choice in the matter.
Dickens certainly told an American story — very
American — of a young lady on a voyage, who, being
intensely loved by five young men, was advised to
"jump overboard and marry the man who jumped in
after her." Accordingly, next morning the five lovers
being on deck, and looking very devotedly at the young
lady, she plunged into the sea. Four of the lovers
immediately jumped in after her. When the young
lady and four lovers were out again, she said to the
captain, "What am I to do with them now, they are
so wet?" "Take the dry one." And the young lady
did, and married him. How different is the state of
affairs on this side of the Atlantic, where, if a young
woman is to be married, she must take not whom
she will, but whom she can. " Oh me, the word choose !
I may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I
dislike." But is it necessary to marry? Far better to
have no husband than a bad one.

There is a great deal of human nature in the account
which Artemus Ward gives of the many affecting ties which
made him hanker after Betsy Jane. " Her father's farm
jined our'n ; their cows and our'n squencht their thurst
at the same spring; our old mares both had stars in
their forrerds ; the measles broke out in both famerlies at
nearly the same period ; our parients (Betsy's and mine)
slept reglarly every Sunday in the same meetin-house,
and the nabers used to obsarve, ' How thick the Wards
and Peasleys air ! ' It was a surblime site, in the spring
of the year, to see our several mothers (Betsy's and

48 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

mine) with their gowns pin'd up so thay couldn't sile
'em affecshunitly bilin sope together and aboozin the
nabers."

In this matter more than in most others "we do
not will according to our reason, we reason according
to our will." True desire, the monition of nature, is
much to be attended to. But always we are to dis-
criminate carefully between true desire and false. The
medical men tell us we should eat what we truly have
an appetite for; but what we only falsely have an
appetite for we should resolutely avoid. Ought not choice
in matrimony to be guided by the same principle ?

Above all things young ladies should ask God, the
best maker of marriages, to direct their choice aright.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 49

CHAPTER VI.

ON MAKING THE BEST OF A BAD MATRIMONIAL
BARGAIN.

How poor are they who have not patience !
What wound did ever heal, but by degrees ?

SHAKESPEARE.

E'en now, in passing" through the garden walks,
Upon the ground I saw a fallen nest,
Ruined and full of ruin ; and over it,
Behold, the uncomplaining' birds, already
Busy in building a new habitation.

LONGFELLOW.

+

BUT "the best laid schemes of mice and men gang
aft a-gley." We are none of us infallible, " not even
the youngest." When the greatest care has been
taken in choosing, people get bad matrimonial bargains,
From the nature of the case this must often happen.
If not one man in a thousand is a judge of the points
of a horse, not one in a million understands human nature.
And even if a young man or woman did understand
human nature, there are before marriage, as a rule,
opportunities of gaining only the slightest knowledge of
the character of one who is , to be the weal or woe
of a new home. It is related in ancient history, or
fable, that when Rhodope, a fashionable Egyptian
beauty, was engaged bathing, an eagle stole away one
of her shoes, and let it fall near Psammetichus the king.
Struck with the pretty shoe, he fell in love with the
foot, and finally married the owner of both. Very little
more acquaintance with each other have the majority of
the Innocents who go abroad into the unknown country
of Matrimony to seek their fortunes or misfortunes.

And then the temper and manner of people when
making love are so different from what these become

So HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

afterwards ! " One would think the whole endeavour
of both parties during the time of courtship is to hinder
themselves from being known — to disguise their natural
temper and real desires in hypocritical imitation, studied
compliance, and continued affectation. From the time
that their love is avowed, neither sees the other but
in a mask ; and the cheat is often managed on both
sides with so much art, and discovered afterwards with
so much abruptness, that each has reason to suspect
that some transformation has happened on the wedding-
night, and that by a strange imposture, as in the case
of Jacob, one has been courted and another married."

Our conventional state of society curtails the limits
of choice in matrimony and hinders the natural law
of the marriage of the fittest. We knew a young
gentleman living in a London suburb who bore an
excellent character, had sufficient income, and was
in every respect marriageable. He wished to try the
experiment of two against the world, but — as he told
the clergyman of his parish — he was in the city all day,
and never had an opportunity of becoming acquainted
with a young lady whom he could ask to be his wife.

We have heard of the stiff Englishman who would
not attempt to save a fellow-creature from 'drowning
because he had never been introduced to him. In the
same way unmarried ladies are allowed to remain in
the Slough of Despond because the valiant young
gentlemen who would rescue them, though they may
be almost, are not altogether in their social set

Every one knows Plato's theory about marriage. He
taught that men and women were hemispheres, so to
speak, of an original sphere ; that ill-assorted marriages
were the result of the wrong hemispheres getting together ;
that, if the true halves met, the man became complete,
and the consequence was the " happy-ever-after " of
childhood's stories. There is much truth in this doctrine,
that for every man there is one woman somewhere in
thy world, and for every woman one man. They seldom

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 51

meet in time. If they did, what would become of the
sensational novelists ?

But are there not in reality too many artificial obstacles
to happy marriages? Why do the right men and
women so seldom meet ? Because mammon, ambition,
envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness step between and
keep apart those whom God would join together.

It is true that newly-married people when going
through the process of being disillusioned are liable
to conclude much too quickly that they have got bad
matrimonial bargains. In a letter which Mrs. Thrale,
the friend of Dr. Johnson, wrote to a young gentleman
on his marriage, she says : " Vvrhen your present violence
of passion subsides, and a more cool and tranquil affec-
tion takes its place, be not hasty to censure yourself as
indifferent, or to lament yourself as unhappy. You have
lost that only which it was impossible to retain ; and it
were graceless amid the pleasures of a prosperous summer
to regret the blossoms of a transient spring. Neither
unwarily condemn your bride's insipidity, till you
have reflected that no object however sublime, no
sounds however charming, can continue to transport
us with delight, when they no longer strike us with
novelty."

Satiety follows quickly upon the heels of possession,
A little boy of four years of age told me the other day
that he wished to die. "Why?" "Oh, just for a
change ! " There are children of a larger growth
who require continual change and variety to keep them
interested.

We expect too much from life in general, and from
married life in particular. When castle-building before
marriage we imagine a condition never experienced
on this side of heaven ; and when real life comes with
its troubles and cares, the tower of romance falls with
a crash, leaving us in the mud-hut of everyday reality.
Better to enter the marriage state in the frame of mind
of that company of American settlers, who, in naming

52 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

their new town, called it Dictionary, " because," as they
said, "that's the only place where peace, prosperity,
and happiness are always to be found."

It would be contrary to the nature of constitutional
grumblers to be satisfied with their matrimonial bargains,
no matter how much too good for them they may be.
They don't want to be satisfied in this or in any other
respect, for, as the Irishman said, they are never happy
unless they are miserable. They may have drawn a
prize in the matrimonial lottery, but they grumble if
it be not the highest prize. They are cursed with dis-
positions like that of the Jew, who, very early one
morning, picked up a roll of bank-notes on Newmarket
Heath, which had been dropped by some inebriated
betting-man the night before. "What have you got
there ? " exclaimed a fellow Israelite. " Lucky as
usual!" "Lucky you call it?" grumbled the man in
reply, rapidly turning over the notes. " Lucky is it !
all fivers — not a tenner among them ! "

Even a perfect matrimonial bargain would not please
some people. They are as prone to grumble as the poof
woman who, being asked if she were satisfied when a
pure water supply had been introduced into Edinburgh,
said: "Aye, not so well as I might; it's not like the
water we had before— it neither smells nor tastes."

There is a story told of a rustic swain who, when
asked whether he would take his partner to be his
wedded wife, replied, with shameful indecision, " Yes,
I'm willin'; but I'd a much sight rather have her -
sister." The sort of people who are represented by this
vacillating bridegroom are no sooner married than they
begin to cast fond, lingering looks behind upon the state
of single blessedness they have abandoned, or else upon
some lost ideal which they prefer to the living, breathing
reality of which they have become possessed. They
don't know, and never did know, their own minds.

Let us suppose, however, that a bad matrimonial
bargain has been obtained- not in imagination, but in

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 53

sad earnest — How is the best to be made of it? We
must do as Old Mother Hubbard did when she found
the cupboard empty — " accept the inevitable with calm
steadfastness." It may even be politic to dissemble a
little, and pretend we rather enjoy it than otherwise.
Above all, do not appeal to the girl's friends for comfort
or consolation. They will only laugh at you. Take
warning from the unfortunate young man who, every
time he met the father of his wife, complained to him
of the bad temper and disposition of his daughter. At
last, upon one occasion, the old gentleman, becoming
weary of the grumbling of his son-in-law, exclaimed :
" You are right, sir; she is an impertinent jade; and if
I hear any more complaints of her, I will disinherit
her."

A writer in Chambers }s Journal gives some instances
of matrimonial tribulation that were brought to light in
the last census returns. Several husbands returned their
wives as the heads of the families; and one described
himself as an idiot for having married his literal better-
half. "Married, and I'm heartily sorry for it," was
returned in two cases; and in quite a number of
instances "Temper" was entered under the head of
infirmities opposite the name of the wife.

Confessions of this sort, besides being, as we have
already hinted, somewhat indiscreet, are often also
supererogatory ; for conjugal dissension, like murder,
will out ; and that sometimes in the most provoking
and untimely manner. It would be much better to
call in the assistance of proper pride than to whine in
this cowardly fashion. "We mortals," says George
Eliot, " men and women, devour many a disappointment
between breakfast and dinner-time ; keep back the tears
and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to
inquiries say * Oh, nothing ! ' Pride helps us ; and
pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide
our own hurts — not to hurt others.'1 "To feel the
chains, but take especial care the world shall not hear

54 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

them clank. Tis a prudence that often passes for
happiness. It is one of the decencies of matrimony."

"Biddy," said Dean Swift one day to his cook, " this
leg of mutton is overdone; take it down and do it less."
"Plaze, your Riverence," replied Biddy, "the thing is
impossible." "Well, then," rejoined her master, "let
this be a lesson to you, that if you must commit
mistakes they, at all events, shall not be of such gravity
as to preclude correction." Well would it be if people
never made mistakes that preclude correction in reference
to more important matters I Yet, for all this, it is a
good thing that we have no " fatal facility " of divorce
in this country, and that a marriage once made is
generally regarded as a world- without-end bargain.

A story has been told of a graceless scamp who gained
access to the Clarendon printing-office in Oxford, when
a new edition of the Prayer-book was ready for the
press. In that part of the " form" already set up which
contained the marriage service, he substituted the letter
k for the letter v in the word live; and thus the vow
"to love, honour, comfort, etc., so long as ye both shall
live," was made to read "so long as ye both shall like ! "
The change was not discovered until the whole of the
edition was printed off. If the sheets are still preserved,
it would be a good speculation to send them to some
of the States in America, where people are " exceedingly
divorced." May they long remain useless in Great
Britain ! For nothing is more dangerous than to unite
two persons so closely in ail their interests and concerns
as man and wife, without rendering the union entire
and total.

In that very interesting Bible story of Nabal and
Abigail, a noble woman is seen making the best of an
extremely bad matrimonial bargain. If her marriage
with Nabal, who was a churlish, iil-ternpered, drunken
fool, was one of the worst possible, does not her conduct
teach the lesson that something may be done to mitigate
the miseries of even the most frightful state of marriage P

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 55

Who shall say how many heroines unknown to fame
there are who imitate her ? Their husbands are weak-
willed, foolish, idle, extravagant, dissipated, and gener-
ally ne'er-do-weel ; but instead of helplessly sitting down
to regret their marriage-day, they take the manage-
ment of everything into their own hands, and make the
best of the inevitable by patient endurance in well-doing.
It is sometimes said that " any husband is better than
none." Perhaps so; in the sense of his being a sort of
domestic Attila, a "scourge of God" to "whip the
offending Adam " out of a woman and turn her into an
angel, as the wives of some bad husbands seem to
become.

" I will do anything," says Portia, in the Merchant of
Venice, " ere I will be married to a sponge;" and in
answer to the question — " How like you the young
German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew ? " she answers :
"Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober; and
most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk : when
he is '"best he is a little worse than a man; and when
he is worst he is little better than a beast: an the
worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to
go without him."

When a poor girl has not had Portia's discernment to
discover such faults before, marriage, what can she do ?
She can do her best.

" What knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save
thy husband ? " Endeavouring to do this, you will not
only have the answer of a good conscience, but will have
taken the -est precaution against falling yourself, so that
it never can be truly said of you —

As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated with a

clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag

thee down.

It has been said that to have loved and lost—- either by
that total disenchantment which leaves compassion *ts

56 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

the sole substitute for love which can exist no more, or
by the slow torment which is obliged to let go day by
day all that constitutes the diviner part of love, namely,
reverence, belief, and trust, yet clings desperately to the
only thing left it, a long-suffering apologetic tenderness
— this lot is probably the hardest any woman can have
to bear.

What is good for a bootless bane ? —
And she made answer, Endless sorrow.

This answer should never have been made, for none
but the guilty can be long and completely miserable.
The effect and duration of sorrow greatly depends upon
ourselves. " If thou hast a bundle of thorns in thy lot,
at least thou need'st not insist on sitting down on them."
Nor must we forget that there is a " wondrous alchemy
in time and the power of God " to transmute our sorrows,
as well as our faults and errors, into golden blessings.

It is an old maxim that if one will not, two cannot
quarrel. If one of the heads of the house has a bad
temper, there is all the more reason for the other to be
cool and collected, and capable of keeping domestic
peace. Think of Socrates, who, when his wife
Xanthippe concluded a fit of scolding by throwing at
him a bucket of water, quietly remarked, "After the
thunder comes the rain." And when she struck him,
to some friends who would have had him strike her
again, he replied, that he would not make them sport,
nor that they should stand by and say, " Eia Socrates^
cia Xanthippe!" as boys do when dogs fight, animate
them more by clapping hands.

If we would learn how to make the worst instead
of the best of a matrimonial bargain, Adam, the first
husband, will teach us. He allowed himself to be
tempted by Eve, and then like a true coward tried to
put all the blame upon her. This little bit of history
repeats itself every day. "In the state of innocenc;

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 57

Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaif do in
the days of villainy ? "

There is another way in which people make the worst
instead of the best of their bad matrimonial bargains.
" Faults are thick where love is thin," and love having
become thin they exaggerate the badness of their
bargains. A man, having one well-formed and one
crooked leg, was wont to test the disposition of his
friends, by observing which leg they looked at first or
most. Surely the last people we should draw with their
worst leg foremost are our life partners. The best of
men are only men at the best. They are, as Sterne said,
"a strange compound of contradictory qualities; and
were the accidental oversights and folly of the wisest
man — the failings and imperfections of a religious man
— the hasty acts and passionate words of a meek man—-
were they to rise up in judgment against them, and
an ill-natured judge to be suffered to mark in this
manner what had been done amiss, what character so
unexceptionable as to be able to stand before him ? "
Ought husbands and wives to be ill-natured judges of
what is amiss ?

" Let a man," says Seneca, " consider his own vices,
reflect upon his own follies, and he will see that he has
the greatest reason to be angry with himself." The best
advice to give husband and wife is to ask them to
resolve in the words of Shakespeare, " I will chide no
breather in the world but myself, against whom I know
most faults." Why beh oldest thou the mote that is in
the eye of thy matrimonial bargain, but considerest not
the beam that is in thine own eye ?

When you find yourself complaining of your
matrimonial bargain, think sometimes whether you
deserve a better one. What right and title has thy
greedy soul to domestic happiness or to any other kind
of happiness ? 4< Fancy," says Carlyle, " thou deservest
to be hanged (as is most likely), thou wilt feel it
happiness to be only shot." We may imagine that we

$8 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

deserve a perfect matrimonial bargain, but a less partial
observer like Lord Braxfield might make a correction in
our estimate. This Scotch judge once said to an
eloquent culprit at the bar, ' ' YeVe a verra clever chiel,
mon, but I'm thinkin' ye wad be nane the waur o* a
hangin'." Equally instructive is the story of a
magistrate, who, when a thief remonstrated, " But, sir,
I must live," replied, "I don't recognise the necessity,'1
It is only when we cease to believe that we must have
supreme domestic and other kinds of felicity, that we
are able with a contented mind to bear our share of the
** weary weight of all this unintelligible world."

In reference to marriage and to everything else in life
we should sometimes reflect how much worse off we
might be instead of how much better. Perhaps you
are like the man who said, " I must put up with it,"
when he had only turkey and plum-pudding for dinner.
If, as it has often been said, all men brought their
grievances of mind, body, and estate — their lunacies,
epilepsies, cancers, bereavement, beggary, imprisonment
— and laid them on a heap to be equaDy divided, would
you share alike and take your portion, or be as you
are ? Without question you would be as you are. And
perhaps if all matrimonial bargains were to be again
distributed, it would be better for you to keep what you
have than to run the chance of getting worse. A man
who grumbled at the badness of his shoes felt ashamed
on meeting with one who had no feet. " Consider the
pains which martyrs have endured, and think how even
now many people are bearing afflictions beyond all
measure greater than yours, and say, * Of a truth my
trouble is comfort, my torments are but roses as
compared to those whose life is a continual death,
without solace, or aid, or consolation, borne down with
a weight of grief tenfold greater than mine,1 "

Oft in life's *tili*&t *hado reclining,
In cUsolatiozi unrepining,

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED, 59

Without a hope on earth to find
A mirror in an answering mind,
Meek souls there are, who little dream,
Their daily strife an angel's theme,
Or that the rod they take so calm
Shall prove in Heaven a martyr's palm.

One of these " meek souls " is reported to have said to
a friend, "You know not the joy of an accepted
sorrow." And of every disappointment, we may truly
say that people know not how well it may be borne until
they have tried to bear it. This, which is true of
disappointment in general, is no less true of the
disappointments of a married pair. Those who have
not found in marriage all that they fondly, and perhaps
over sanguinely, anticipated, may, after some time,
become to a certain extent happy though married, if
they resolve to do their best under the circumstances.

60 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.
CHAPTER VII.

AfARRIAGE CONSIDERED AS A DISCIPLINE OF CHARACTER.

Certainly wife and children are a kind of Discipline
of Humanity. — BACON.

I well remember the bright assenting laugh which
she (Mrs. Carlyle) once responded to some words of mine,
when the propriety was being discussed of relaxing the
marriage laws. I had said that the true way to look
at marriage was as a discipline of character. — FROUDE.

"Dm you ever see anything so absurd as a horse
sprawling like that?*' This was the hasty exclamation
of a connoisseur on taking up a small cabinet picture.
"Excuse me," replied the owner, "you hold it the
wrong way : it is a horse galloping." So much depends
upon the way we look at things. In the preceding
chapter we spoke of making the best of bad matrimonial
bargains. Perhaps it would help some people to do this
if they looked at marriage from a different point of view
— if they considered it as a discipline of character rather
than as a short cut to the highest heaven of happiness.
Certainly this is a practical point of view, and it may
be that those who marry in this spirit are more likely
to use their matrimony rightly than those who start with
happiness as their only goal. That people get happiness
by being willing to pass it by and do without it rather
than by directly pursuing it, is as true of domestic
felicity as of other kinds.

"Ven you're a married man, Samivel," says Mr.
Weller to his son Sam, " you'll understand a good many
things as you don't understand now; but vether it's
worth while going through so much to learn so little,
as the charity-boy said ven he got to the end of the
alphabet, is a matter o' taste: I rayther think it isn't."
'Strange that a philosopher of the senior Mr. Weller's

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 61

profundity should under-estimate in this way the value
of matrimony as a teacher. We have it on the authority
of a widower who was thrice married, that his first wife
cured his romance, the second taught him humility, and
the third made him a philosopher. Another veteran
believes that five or six years of married life will often
reduce a naturally irascible man to so angelic a condition
that it would hardly be safe to trust him with a pair
of wings.

Webster asks —

What do you think of marriage ?
I think, as those do who deny purgatory,
It locally contains either heaven or hell,
There is no third place in it.

Is this true? We think not, for we know many married
people who live in a third place, the existence of which
is here denied. They are neither intensely happy nor
intensely miserable ; but they lose many faults, and are
greatly developed in character by passing through a
purgatorial existence. Nor is this an argument against
matrimony, except to those who deny that " it is better
to be seven times in the furnace than to come out
unpurified."

Sweet are the uses of this and every other adversity
when these words of Sir Arthur Helps are applicable
to its victims or rather victors : " That man is very
strong and powerful who has no more hopes for himself,
who looks not to be loved any more, to be admired
any more, to have any more honour or dignity, and
who cares not for gratitude ; but whose sole thought is
for others, and who only lives on for them."

The young husband may imagine that he only takes
a wife to add to his own felicity ; taking no account of
the possibility of meeting a disposition and temper
which may, without caution, mar and blight his own.
Women are not angels, although in their ministrations
they make a near approach to them. Women,, no more

62 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

than men, are free from human infirmities; the newly-
married man must therefore calculate upon the necessity
of amendment in his wife as well as of that necessity in
himself. The process, however, as well as the result
of the process, will yield a rich reward. At a minister's
festival meeting "Our Wives" was one of the toasts.
One of the brethren, whose wife had a temper of her
own, on being sportively asked if he would drink it,
exclaimed, " Aye, heartily ! Mine brings me to my
knees in prayer a dizzen times a day, an1 nane o* you
can say the same o* yours."

If even bad matrimonial bargains have so much
influence in disciplining character, how much more
may be learned from a happy marriage ! Without it
a man or woman is " Scarce half made up.** The
enjoyments of celibacy, whatever they may be, are
narrow in their range, and belong to only a portion
of our nature; and whatever the excellences of the
bachelor's character, he can never attain to a perfect
manhood so long as such a large and important part
of his nature as the affections for the gratification of
which marriage provides, is unexercised and unde-
veloped. There are in his nature latent capabilities,
both of enjoyment and affection, which find no ex-
pression. He is lacking in moral symmetry. The
motives from which he keeps himself free from marriage
responsibilities may be worthy of the highest respect,
but this does not hinder his character from being less
disciplined than it might have been.

For indeed I- know

Of no more subtle master under heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only to keep down the base in man,
But teaeh high thoughts and amiable words,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man.

On both sides marriage brings into play some of
the purest and loftiest feelings of which our nature is

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 63

capable. The feeling of identity of interest implied
in the marriage relation —the mutual confidence which
is the natural result — the tender, chivalrous regard of
the husband for his wife as one who has given herself
to him — the devotion and respect of the wife for
the husband as one to whom she has given herself
— their mutual love attracted first by the qualities
seen or imagined by each in the other, and afterwards
strengthened by the consciousness of being that object's
best beloved — these feelings exert a purifying, refining,
elevating influence, and are more akin to the religious
than any other feelings. Love, like all things here, is
education. It renders us wise by expanding the soul
and stimulating the mental powers.

Yes, love indeed is light from heaven :

A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shared, by Allah given,

To lift from earth our low desire.
Devotion wafts the mind above,
But heaven itself descends in love ;
A feeling from the Godhead caught,
To wean from self each sordid thought ;
A ray of Him who formed the whole ;
A glory circling round the soul J

It has been well said, u The first condition of human
goodness is something to love; the second, something
to reverence." Both these conditions meet in a well-
chosen alliance.

Married people may so abuse matrimony as to make
it a very school for scandal ; but it may and ought to
be what Sir Thomas More's home was said to be, "a
school and exercise of the Christian religion." "No
wrangling, no angry word, was heard in it ; no one was
idle ; every one did his duty with alacrity and not with-
out a temperate cheerfulness." This atmosphere of
love and duty which pervaded his home must have been
owing in a great measure to the household goodness of

64 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

Sir Thomas himself. For though his first wife was all
that he could have desired, his second was ill-tempered
and little capable of appreciating the lofty principles that
actuated her husband. "I have lived — I have laboured
— I have loved. I have lived in them I loved, laboured
for them I loved, loved them for whom I laboured."
Well might Sir Thomas add after this reflection, "My
labour hath not been in vain ; " for to say nothing of
its effect upon others, how it must have disciplined his
own character !

"There is nothing," you say, "in the drudgery of
domestic life to soften." No; but, as Robertson of
Brighton says, " a great deal to strengthen with the
sense of duty done, self-control, and power. Besides
you cannot calculate how much corroding rust is kept
off, how much of disconsolate, dull despondency is
hindered. Daily use is not the jeweller's mercurial
polish, but it will keep your little silver pencil from
tarnishing."

"Family life," says Sainte-Beuve, "may be full of
thorns and cares ; but they are fruitful : all others are
dry thorns." And again : " If a man's home at a
certain period of life does not contain children, it will
probably be found filled with follies or with vices."

Even if it were a misfortune to be married, which we
emphatically deny, has not the old Roman moralist
taught us that " to escape misfortune is to want instruc-
tion, and that to live at ease is to live in ignorance " ?
Misfortune to be married I Rather not.

Life with all it yields of joy and woe

And hope and fear . . .

Is just our chance o* the prize of the learning love —

How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 65
CHAPTER VIII.

BEING MARRIED.

If ever one is to pray — if ever one is to feel grave
and anxious — if ever one is to shrink from vain show
and vain babble, surely it is just on the occasion of two
human beings binding themselves to one another, for
better and for worse till death part them. — Letters and
Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle.

AN elderly unmarried lady of Scotland, after reading
aloud to her two sisters, also unmarried, the births,
marriages, and deaths in the ladies' corner of a news-
paper, thus moralised: "Weel, weel, these are solemn
events — death and marriage; but ye ken they're what
we must all come to." " Eh, Miss Jeanny, but ye have
been lang spared 1 " was the reply of the youngest sister.
Those who in our thoughts were represented as being
only in prospect of marriage are spared no longer. They
have now come to what they had to come to — a day
"so full of gladness, and so full of pain" — a day only
second in importance to the day of birth ; in a word,
to their wedding day.

Are [they] sad or merry ?

Like to the time o* the year between the extremes
Of hot and cold : [they are] nor sad nor merry.

And yet few on such a day are as collected as the
late Duke of Sutherland is said to have been. Just two
hours before the time fixed for his marriage with one
of the most beautiful women in England, a friend came
upon him in St. James's Park, leaning carelessly over
the railing at the edge of the water, throwing crumbs to
the waterfowl. " What ! you here to-day 1 I thought
you were going to be married this morning ? " " Yes,"
replied the Duke, without moving an inch or stopping
C his crumb-throwing, " I believe I am."

66 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

To men of a shyer and more nervous temperament,
to be married without chloroform is a very painful
operation. They find it difficult to screw their courage
to the marrying place. On one occasion a bridegroom
so far forgot what was due to himself and his bride as
to render himself unfit to take the vows through too
frequent recourse on the wedding morn to the cup that
cheers — and inebriates. The minister was obliged to
refuse to proceed with the marriage, A few days later,
the same thing occurred with the same couple ; where-
upon the minister gravely remonstrated with the bride,
and said they must not again present themselves with
the bridegroom in such a state. "But, sir, he — he
wt'nna come when he's sober" was the candid rejoinder.
It is possible that this bridegroom, whose courage was
so very Dutch, might have been deterred by the irnpend-
ing fuss and publicity of a marriage ceremony, rather
than by any fear of or want of affection for her who was
to become his wife. Even in the best assorted marriages
there is always more or less anxiety felt upon the
wedding-day.

The possibility of a hitch arising from a sadden
change of inclination on the part of the principals is
ludicrously illustrated by the case of two couples who
on one occasion presented themselves at the Mayoralty,
in a suburb of Paris, to carry out the civil portion of
their marriage contract. During the ceremony one
of the bridegrooms saw, or fancied he saw, his partner
making " sheep's-eyes " at the bridegroom opposite.
Being of a jealous temperament, he laid his hand
roughly on her arm, and said sharply, " Mademoiselle,
which of the two brides are you ? You are mine, I
believe : then oblige me by confining your glances to
me." The bride was a young woman of spirit, and
resenting the tone in which the reprimand was made,
retorted, " Ah, Monsieur, if you are jealous already,
I am likely to lead a pleasant life with you ! " The
jealous bridegroom made an angry reply ; and then the

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 67

other bridegroom must needs put his oar in. This led
to a general dispute, which the Mayor in vain endeavoured
to quell. The bridegrooms stormed at each other ; and
the brides, between their hysterical sobs, mutually
accused each other of perfidy. At length the Mayor,
as a last resource, adjourned the ceremony for half an
hour, to admit of an amicable understanding being
arrived at, both brides having refused to proceed with
the celebration of the nuptials. When, at the expiration
of the half-hour, the parties were summoned to reappear,
they did so, to the amazement of the bewildered Mayor,
in an altogether different order from that in which they
had originally entered. The bridegrooms had literally
effected an exchange of brides — the jealous bridegroom
taking the jealous bride ; and the other, the lady whose
fickle glances had led to the rupture. All four adhering
to the new arrangement, the Mayor, it is recorded, had
no alternative but to proceed with the ceremony.

The ruling passion is not more strongly felt in death
than in marriage. Dr. Johnson displayed the sturdiness
of his character as he journeyed with the lady of his
choice from Birmingham to Derby, at which last place
they were to be married. Their ride thither, which we
give in the bridegroom's own words, is an amusing bit
of literary history. " Sir, she had read the old romances,
and had got into her head the fantastical notion that
a woman of spirit should use her lover like a dog. So,
sir, at first she told me that I rode too fast, and she
could not keep up with me : and when I rode a little
slower, she passed me, and complained that I lagged
behind. I was not to be made the slave of caprice;
and I resolved to begin as I meant to end. I therefore
pushed on briskly, till I was fairly out of her sight.
The road lay between two hedges, so I was sure she
could not miss it ; and I contrived that she should soon
come up with me. When she did, I observed her to
be in tears."

On the wedding-day of the celebrated M. Pasteur, who

68 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

has made such extraordinary discoveries about germs,
the hour appointed for the ceremony had arrived, but
the bridegroom was not there. Some friends rushed
off to the laboratory and found him very busy with his
apron on. He was excessively cross at being disturbed,
and declared that marriage might wait, but his experi-
ments could not do so.

He would indeed be a busy man who could not make
time for a marriage ceremony as brief as that which was
employed in the celebration of a marriage in Iowa,
United States. The bride and bridegroom were told to
join their hands, and then asked, "Do you want one
another?" Both replied, "Yes." "Well, then, have
one another ; " and the couple were man and wife.
Most people, however, desire a more reverent solemnisa-
tion of marriage, which may be viewed in two aspects
w-ras a natural institution, and a religious ordinance.
In the Old Testament we see it as a natural institution ;
in the New, it is brought before us in a religious light.
It is there likened to the union of Christ and the Church.
The union of Christ and the Church is not illustrated
by marriage, but marriage by this spiritual union ; that
is, the natural is based upon the spiritual. And this
is what is wanted ; it gives marriage a religious significa-
tion, and it thus becomes a kind of semi-sacrament.
The illustration teaches that in order to be happy though
married the principle of sacrifice must rule the conduct
of the married. As no love between man and wife can
be true which does not issue in a sacrifice of each for the
other, so Christ gave Himself for His Church and the
Church sacrifices itself to His service. The only true
love is self-devotion, and the every-day affairs of married
life must fail without this principle of self-sacrifice or the
cross of Christ.

"Would to God that His dear Son were bidden to all
weddings as to that of Cana ! Truly then the wine of
consolation and blessing would never be lacking. He
who desires that the young of his flock should be like

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 69

Jacob's, fair and ring-straked, must set fair objects before
their eyes; and he who would find a blessing in his
marriage, must ponder the holiness and dignity of this
mystery, instead of which too often weddings become
a season of mere feasting and disorder."

A new home is being formed in reference to which
the bride and groom should think, "This is none other
but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
The parish church is called "God's House "; but if
all the parishioners rightly used their matrimony, every
house in the parish might be called the same. Home
is the place of the highest joys ; religion should sanctify
it. Home is the sphere of the deepest sorrows; the
highest consolation of religion should assuage its griefs.
Home is the place of the greatest intimacy of heart
with heart ; religion should sweeten it with the joy of
confidence. Home discovers all faults; religion should
bless it with the abundance of charity. Home is the
place for impressions, for instruction and culture ; there
should religion open her treasures of wisdom and
pronounce her heavenly benediction.

An old minister, previous to the meeting of the
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, used to
pray that the assembly might be so guided as " no to do
ony harm" We have often thought that such a prayer
as this would be an appropriate commencement for the
marriage service. Considering the issues that are
involved in marriage — the misery unto the third and
fourth generation that may result from it — those who
join together man and woman in matrimony ought to I
pray that in doing so they may do no harm. Certainly
the opening exhortation of the Church of England
marriage service is sufficiently serious. It begins by
proclaiming the sacredness of marriage as a Divine
institution ; hallowed as a type of the mystical union
between Christ and His Church; honoured (even in its
festive aspect) by Our Lord's presence and first miracle

70 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

at Cana of Galilee ; declared to be " honourable among
all men, and therefore not by any to be enterprised,
nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly;
but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in
the fear of God ; duly considering the causes for which
Matrimony was ordained." These are explained in
words plain-spoken almost to coarseness before allusion
is made to the higher moral relation of** mutual society,
help, and comfort " which marriage creates.

Then follows "the betrothal" in which the man
"plights his troth" (pledges his truth), taking the
initiative, while the woman gives hers in return :

The " wilt thou," answered, and again
The " wilt thou," asked, till out of twain
Her sweet " I will " has made ye one.

The "joining of hands" is from time immemorial
the pledge of covenant — we ** shake hands over a
bargain " — and is here an essential part of the marriage
ceremony.

The use of the ring is described in the prayer that
follows as the token of the marriage covenant — from
the man the token of his confiding to his wife all
authority over what is his, and for the woman the
badge of belonging to his house. The old service has
a quaint rubric declaring it put on the fourth finger of
the left hand, because thence " there is a vein leading
direct to the heart" The Prayer Book of Edward VI.
directs that "the man shall give unto the woman a
ring, and other tokens of spousage, as gold or silver,
laying the same upon the book." This is clearly the
ancient bride price. Wheatly's Book of Common
Prayer says, "This lets us into the design of the
ring, and intimates it to be the remains of an ancient
custom whereby it was usual for the man to purchase
the woman." The words to be spoken by the man
are taken from the old service, still using the ancient

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 71

word "worship" (worth — ship) for service and honour.
They declare the dedication both of person and
substance to the marriage bond.

The Blessing is one of singular beauty and solemnity
It not only invokes God's favour to "bless, preserve,
and keep" the newly-made husband and wife in this
world, but looks beyond it to the life hereafter, for
which nothing can so well prepare them as a well-spent
wedded life here.

It is said that among the natives of India the cost
to a father of marrying his daughter is about equal
to having his house burnt down. Although brides are
not so expensive in this country, much money is wasted
on the wedding and preliminaries which would be very
useful to the young people a year or two afterwards.

We would not advise that there should be no wedding-
breakfast and that the bride should have no trousseau;
but we do think that these accessories should be in
accordance with the family exchequer. Again, wedding
presents are often the very articles that the young couple
need least, and are not unfrequently found to be
duplicates of the gifts of other persons. But we cannot
linger over the wedding festivities.

Adieu, young friends ! and may joy crown you, love
bless you. God speed your career !

Some natural tears they dropped, but wip'd them soon :
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow.
Through Eden took their solitary way.

72 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

CHAPTER IX.

HONEYMOONING.

The importance of the honeymoon, which had been
so much vaunted to him by his father, had not held
good. — The Married Life of Albert Dilrer,

THE " honeymoon" is defined by Johnson to be "the
first month after marriage, when there is nothing but
tenderness and pleasure." And certainly it ought to be
the happiest month in our lives ; but it may, like every
other good thing, be spoiled by mismanagement.
When this is the case, we take our honeymoon like
other pleasures — sadly. Instead of happy reminiscences,
nothing is left of it except its jars.

You take, says the philosophical observer, a man and
a woman, who in nine cases out of ten know very little
about each other (though they generally fancy they do),
you cut off the woman from all her female friends, you
deprive the man of his ordinary business and ordinary
pleasures, and you condemn this unhappy pair to spend
a month of enforced seclusion in each other's society.
If they marry in the summer and start on a tour, the
man is oppressed with a plethora of sight-seeing, while
the lady, as often as not, becomes seriously ill from
fatigue and excitement.

A newly-married man took his bride on a tour to
Switzerland for the honeymoon, and when there induced
her to attempt with him the ascent of one of the high
peaks. The lady, who at home had never ascended
a hill higher than a church, was much alarmed, and
had to be carried by the guides with her eyes blind-
folded, so as not to witness the horrors of the passage.
The bridegroom walked close to her, expostulating
respecting her fear. He spoke in honeymoon whispers ;
but th* rarefaction of the air was such that every word

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 73

was audible. " You told me, Leonora, that you always
felt happy — no matter where you were — so long as you
were in my company. Then why are you not happy
now?" "Yes, Charles, I did," replied she, sobbing
hysterically; "but I never meant above the snow-line."
It is at such times as these that awkward angles of
temper make themselves manifest, which, under a more
sensible system, might have been concealed for years,
perhaps for ever.

Boswell called upon Dr. Johnson on the morning of
the day on which he was to leave for Scotland — for
matrimonial purposes. The prospect of connubial
felicity had made the expectant husband voluble; he
therefore took courage to recite to the sage a little love-
song which he had himself composed and which Dibdin
was to set to music :

A MATRIMONIAL THOUGHT.

In the blythe days of honeymoon,
With Kate's allurements smitten

I loved her late, I loved her soon,
And called her dearest kitten.

But now my kitten's grown a cat,

And cross like other wives,
Oh ! by my soul, my honest Mat,

I fear she has nine lives.

Johnson: "It is very well, sir, but you should not
swear." Whereupon the obnoxious " Oh ! by my soul,"
was changed on the instant to " Alas ! alas ! "

If the kitten should develop into a cat even before
the " blythe days of honeymoon " are ended, it is no
wonder, considering the way some young couples spend
the first month of married life, rushing from one
continental city to another, and visiting all the churches
and picture-galleries, however scorching may be the
weather or however great may be their secret aversion

74 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

to art and antiquity. The lady gives way to fatigue,
and is seized with a violent headache. For a while the
young husband thinks that it is rather nice to support
his Kate's head, but when she answers his sympathetic
inquiries sharply and petulantly, he in turn becomes less
aimable, dazzling, enchanting, and, in a word, all that
as *.fianc6 he had been.

Winter honeymooning is even more trying to the
temper, for then short days and unfavourable weather
compel the young couple to stay in one place. Imagine
the delights of a month spent in lodgings at the
seaside, with nothing to do except to get photographed,
which is a favourite pastime of the newly-married. The
bride may be indifferent to the rain and sleet beating
against the windows, for she can spend the time writing
to her friends long and enthusiastic descriptions of her
happiness; but what can the unlucky bridegroom do?
He subscribes to the circulating library, reads a series
of novels aloud to his wife, and illustrates every amatory
passage with a kiss. But the " dear old boy " (as the
bride calls him) tires of this sort of thing after a week,
and how can he then amuse himself? He stares out of
windows, he watches the arrival of the milkman and
the butcher with the liveliest interest; he envies the
coastguardsman, who is perpetually on the lookout for
invisible smugglers through a portentously long telescope,
Cases have been known where the bridegroom — a
City man — being driven to desperation, has privately
ordered the office journal and ledger to be sent
down by luggage train, and has devoted his even-
ings to checking the additions in those interesting
volumes.

When Hodge and his sweetheart crown their pastoral
loves in the quiet old country church, they take a
pleasant dr.ve or a walk in their finery, and settle down
at once to connubial comfort in the cot beside the wood.
Why do their richer neighbours deny themselves this
happiness and invent special troubles? Why, during

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 73

the early weeks of married life, do they lay up sad
memories of provoking mistakes, of trunks which will
not pack, of trains which will not wait, of tiresome sight-
seeing, of broiling sun, of headache, of " the fretful stir
unprofitable, and the fever " of honeymooning abroad ?
Many a bridegroom but just returned from a " delightful
tour on the Continent " will be able to sympathise in
the remark of the country farmer to a companion in the
train, as he went to town to buy hay. " Yes, it's been
a bad winter for some folk. Old Smith's dead, and so
is Jones, and my wife died yesterday. And how be the
hay, master ? "

We do not want excitement during the honeymoon,
for are we not in love (if we are not we ought to be
ashamed of ourselves), and is not love all-sufficient?
Last week we only saw the object of our affections by
fits and starts as it were; now we have her or him
all to ourselves.

Who hath not felt that breath in the air,

A perfume and freshness strange and rare,

A warmth in the light, and a bliss everywhere,

When young hearts yearn together ?
All sweets below, and all sunny above,
Oh ! there's nothing in life like making love,

Save making hay in fine weather.

Let cynics say what they will, the honeymoon, when
not greatly mismanaged, is a halcyon period. It is a
delightful lull between two distinct states of existence,
and the married man is not to be envied who can recall
no pleasant reminiscences of it. What profane outsiders
consider very dull has a charm of its own to honeymoon
lovers who " illumine life with dreaming," and who see — *

Golden visions wave and hover,
Golden vapours, waters streaming,
Landscapes moving, changing, gleaming;

76 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

Still, we cannot but think that if a wedding tour
must be taken, it should be short, quiet, free-and-
easy, and inexpensive. At some future time, when
the young people are less agitated and have learned
to understand each other better, the time and
money saved will be available for a more extended
holiday. During the honeymoon there should be
"marches hymeneal in the land of the ideal" rather
than globe-trotting; "thoughts moved o'er fields
Elysian" rather than over the perplexing pages of
"Bradshaw's General Railway and Steam Navigation
Guide."

In reference to the honeymoon, as to other matters,
people's opinions differ according to their temperaments
and circumstances. So we shall conclude this chapter
by quoting two nearly opposite opinions, and ask our
readers to decide for themselves.

In the " Memoir of Daniel Macmillan " his opinion is
thus stated: " That going out for the honeymoon is a
most wise and useful invention; it enables you to be
so constantly together, and to obtain a deeper knowledge
of each other ; and it also helps one to see and feel the
preciousness of such intimacy as nothing else could.
Intercourse in the presence of others never leads below
the surface, and it is in the very depths of our being
that true calm, deep and true peace and love live.
Nothing so well prepares for the serious duties of
after-life/'

"As to long honeymoons," said a Bishop of
Rochester, " most sensible people have come utterly to
disbelieve in them. They are a forced homage to
utterly false ideas; they are a waste of money at a
mement when every shilling is wanted for much more
pressing objects; they are a loss of time, which soon
comes to be dreary and weary. Most of all, they are a
risk for love, which ought not so soon to be so
unpleasantly tested by the inevitable petulances of a
secret ennui, Six days by all means, and then, oh I

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 77

happy friends, go straight home. . . . Whenever you
come back, six weeks hence or one, you will have just
as much to stand the fire of a little hard staring which
won't hurt you, and of bright pleasantness which need
not vex you; and the sooner you are at home, the
sooner you will find out what married happiness
means."

78 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.
CHAPTER X.

MARRIAGE VOWS.

Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that
thou shouldest vow and not pay. — Ecclesiastes v. 5.

THE honeymoon is over, and our young couple have
exchanged their chrysalis condition for the pleasures
and duties of ordinary married life. Let them begin by
forming the highest ideal of marriage. Now, and on
every anniversary of their wedding-day, they should
seriously reflect upon those vows which are too often
taken, either in entire ignorance of their meaning and
import, or thoughtlessly, as though they were mere
incidents of the marriage ceremony.

A Hampshire incumbent recently reported some of the
blunders he had heard made in the marriage service, by
that class of persons who have to pick up the words
as best they can from hearing them repeated by others.
He said that in his own parish it was quite the fashion
for the man, when giving the ring, to say to the
woman, "With my body I thee wash up, and with all
my hurdle goods I thee and thou.*' He said the women
were generally better up in this part of the service than
the men. One day, however, a bride startled him by
promising, in what she supposed to be language of the
Prayer-book, to take her husband "to 'ave and to 'old
from this day fortn't, for betterer horse, for richerer
power, in siggerness health, to love cherries, and to
bay." We have heard of an ignorant bridegroom who,
confusing the baptismal and marriage services, replied,
when asked if he consented to take the bride for his wife,
* I renounce them all ! " It is to be hoped that the
times of such ignorance are either passed or passing ;
still, a little instruction in reference to marriage vows
might be given with advantage in some churches.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 79

In one of his letters Byron tells a story of a learned
Jew, who was remarkable, in the brilliant circles to
which his learning gained him admittance, for his habit
of asking questions continuously and fearlessly, in order
to get at the bottom of any matter in discussion. To
a person who was complaining of the Prince Regent's
bad treatment of his old boon companions, this habitual
interrogator cried across a dinner-table, " And why
does the prince act so ? " " Because he was told so-and-
so by Lord •• •• ; who ought to be ashamed of himself ! "
was the answer. " But why, sir, has the prince cut
you ? " inquired the searcher after truth. " Because I
stuck to my principles — yes, sir, because I stuck to
my principles ! " replied the other testily, thinking
that his examination was ended. "And why did
you stick to your principles t " cried the interrogator,
throwing the table into a roar of laughter, the mirth
being no more due to the inquisitor's persistence than,
to his inability to conceive that any man would stick to
his principles simply because he believed them to be right
Are there not some educated as well as uneducated
people who seem to be quite as incapable of conceiving
that they should keep their marriage vows, simply
because it is dishonourable and wicked to break them ?

A mother having become alarmed about the failing
state of her daughter's health, and not being able to
get much satisfaction from a consultation with the
village doctor, took her to a London physician for
further advice. He asked a few questions as to the
girl's daily habits and mode of life, carefully stethoscoped
her heart and lungs, and then gave an involuntary sigh.
The mother grew pale, and waited anxiously for a
verdict. "Madam," he said, "so far as I can discover,
your daughter is suffering from a most serious complaint,
which, for want of a better name, I shall call * dulness,'
Perhaps it is in your power to cure it, I have no
medicine which is a specific for this disease." Girls
who suffer in this way too often prescribe (or themselves

8o HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

marriage with men whom they cannot love, honour,
and obey. This is as bad as dram-drinking or
gambling ; but what else can the poor things do ?
They have not been trained like their brothers to
useful work, and have always been told that woman's
first, best occupation is — to be a wife. To which it
may be answered :

Most true ; but to make a mere business of marriage,
To call it a "living," "vocation," "career,"

Is but to pervert, to degrade, and disparage
A contract of all the most sacred and dear.

Nor will those vows be regarded with greater sanctity
which are taken against the inclination. Better to be
as candid as the girl who, forced by her parents into a
disagreeable match, when the clergyman came to that
part of the service where the bride is asked if she will
have the bridegroom for her husband, said, with great
simplicity, "Oh dear, no, sir; but you are the first
person who has asked my opinion about the matter !"

Let us think now what the vows are which, at the
altar of God, and in the presence of our fellow-creatures,
we solemnly vow. Both the man and the woman vow
to love, honour, cherish, and be faithful, for better for
worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and health,
till death part them. Then the husband promises to
comfort his wife, and the wife to serve and obey her
husband.

A Scotch lady, whose daughter was recently married,
was asked by an old friend whether she might con-
gratulate her upon the event. " Yes, yes," she answered ;
"upon the whole it is very satisfactory; it is true
Jeannie hates her gudeman, but then there's always a
something." The old friend might have told this Scotch
lady that in making light of love she made light of that
which was needful to hallow her daughter's marriage;
and that even the blessing of a bishop in the most

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 81

fashionable church does not prevent a loveless alliance
from being a sacrifice of true chastity.

Contrast the indifference of this Scotch lady in refer-
ence to matrimonial love, with the value set upon it in
a letter which Pliny the Younger, who was a heathen,
wrote concerning his wife, Calpurnia, to her aunt. It
is quoted by Dr. Cook as follows : " She loves me, the
surest pledge of her virtue, and adds to this a wonderful
disposition to learning, which she has acquired from her
affection to me. She reads my writings, studies them,
and even gets them by heart. You would smile to see
the concern she is in when I have a cause to plead, and
the joy she shows when it is over. She finds means to
have the first news brought her of the success I meet
with in court. If I recite anything in public, she cannot
refrain from placing herself privately in some corner to
hear. Sometimes she accompanies my verses with the
lute, without any master except love — the best of in-
structors. From these instances I take the most certain
omens of our perpetual and increasing happiness, since
her affection is not founded on my youth or person,
which must gradually decay ; but she is in love with the
immortal part of me."

The second vow taken by both the man and the
woman is to "honour." "Likewise, ye husbands, dwell
with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto
the wife as unto the weaker vessel." " And the wife see
that she reverence her husband." The weaker vessel is
to be honoured, not because she is weak, but because,
being weak, she acts her part so well.

And even if the wife's courage and endurance should
sometimes fail, a good husband would not withhold
honour from her on that account. He would remember
her weaker nature, and her more delicate physical frame,
her more acute nervous sensibility, her greater sensitive-
ness and greater trials, the peculiar troubles to which
she is subject.

In a lately published Narrative of a Journey

82 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

through the South China Border Lands, we are told
that a wife in this part of the world, when mentioned by
her husband, "which happens as seldom as possible," is
called " My dull thorn," " The thorn in my ribs," or
"The mean one of the inner rooms.'' This is the way
not to honour a wife. But the honour which a husband
should give is not merely that chivalrous bearing which
the strong owe to the weak, and which every woman has
a right to expect from every man. In describing a
husband who was in the habit of honouring his wife,
Dr. Landels remarks that "one could not be in his
presence without feeling it. Never a word escaped his
lips which reflected directly or indirectly on her. Never
an action he performed would have led to the impression
that there could be any difference between them. She
was the queen of his home. All about them felt that in
his estimation, and by his desire, her authority was un-
impeachable, and her will law. And the effect of his
example was that children and friends and domestics
alike hedged her about with sweet respect. A man
of strong will himself, his was never known to be in
collision with hers; and, without any undue yielding,
the homage which he paid to his wife made their union
one of the happiest it has ever been our privilege to
witness."

And the wife, on her part, is to reverence and honour
her husband as long as she possibly can. If possible,
she should let her husband suppose that she thinks him
a good husband, and it will be a strong stimulus to
his being so. As long as he thinks he possesses the
character, he will take some pains to deserve it; but
when he has lost the name he will be very apt to
abandon the reality altogether. "To treat men as if
> they were better than they are is the surest way to make
them better than they are." Keats tells us that he has
met with women who would like to be married to a Poem,
and given away by a Novel ; but wives must not cease
to honour their husbands on discovering that instead of

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 83

being poetical and romantic they are very ordinary,
imperfect beings.

There are homes where poverty has never left its
pinch nor sickness paid its visit ; homes where there is
plenty on the board, and health in the circle, and yet
where a skeleton more grim than death haunts the cup-
board, and an ache harsher than consumption's tooth
gnaws sharply at the heart. Why do those shoulders
stoop so early ere life's noon has passed? Why is it
that the sigh which follows the closing of the door after
the husband has gone off to business is a sigh of relief,
and that which greets his coming footstep is a sigh of
dread ? What means that nervous pressing of the hand
against the heart, the gulping back of the lump that
rises in the throat, the forced smile, and the pressed-back
tear ? If we could but speak to the husbands who haunt
these homes, we would tell them that some such soliloquy
as the following is ever passing like a laboured breath
through the distracted minds of their wives : " Is this
the Canaan, this the land of promise, this the milk and
honey that were pictured to my fancy ; when the walks
among the lanes, and fields, and flowers were all too
short, and the whispers were so loving, and the pressure
was s°> fond, and the heart-beat was so passionate !
For what have I surrendered home, youth, beauty,
freedom, love — all that a woman has to give in all her
wealth of confidence? Harsh tones, cold looks, stern
words, short answers, sullen reserve." " What," says the
cheery neighbour, "is that all?" All! What more is
needed to make home dark, to poison hope, to turn life
into a funeral, the marriage-robe into a shroud, and the
grave into a refuge? It does not want drunkenness,
blows, bruises, clenched fists, oaths, to work sacrilege in
the temple of the home ; only a little ice where the fire
should glow; only a cold look where the love should
burn; only a sneer where there ought to be a smile.
Husband ! that wife of yours is wretched because you
are a liar; because you perjured yourself when you

84 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

vowed to love and cherish. You are too great a
coward to beat her brains out with a poker lest the
gallows claim you ; but you are so little of a man that
you poison her soul with the slow cruelty of an oath
daily foresworn and brutally ignored. If the ducking-
stool was a punishment of old for a scolding wife, a
fiercer baptism should await the husband who has ceased
to cherish his wife.

As regards the vow of fidelity we need only quote
these words of the prophet Malachi : " The Lord hath
been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth,
against whom thou hast dealt treacherously : yet she
is thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And
did not he make one? Therefore take heed to your
spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife
of his youth." But there are absentee husbands and
wives who, though they are not guilty of breaking the
seventh commandment, do by no means keep the
promise of keeping only to their wives and husbands.
If a man come home only when other places are shut,
or when his money is all gone, or when nobody else
wants him, is he not telling his wife and family, as
plainly by deeds as he could possibly by words, that he
takes more delight in other company than in theirs ?
Charles Lamb used to feel that there was something
,of dishonesty in any pleasures which he took without
his lunatic sister. A good man will feel something like
this in reference to his wife and children.

But though men should love their homes, it is quite
possible for them to be too much at home. This at
least is the opinion of most wives. There is everywhere
a disposition to pack off the men in the morning and
to bid them keep out of the way till towards evening,
when it is assumed they will probably have a little news
of the busy world to bring home, and when baby will
be sure to have said something exceptionally brilliant
and precocious. The general events of the day will
afford topics of conversation more interesting by far

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 85

than if the whole household had been together *from
morning till night Men about home all day are fidgety,
grumpy, and interfering — altogether objectionable, in
short.

As a rule it is when things are going wrong that
women show to the best advantage. Every one can
remember illustrations. We have one in the following
story of Hawthorne, which was told to Mr. Con way by
an intimate friend of the novelist. One wintry day
Hawthorne received at his office notification that his
services would no longer be required. With heaviness
of heart he repaired to his humble home. His young
wife recognises the change and stands waiting for the
silence to be broken. At length he falters, " I am
removed from office." Then she leaves the room ; she
returns with fuel and kindles a bright fire with her own
hands; next she brings pen, paper, ink, and sets them
beside him. Then she touches the sad man on the
shoulder, and, as he turns to the beaming face, says,
"Now you can write your book." The cloud cleared
away. The lost office looked like a cage from which he
had escaped. The Scarlet Letter was written, and
a marvellous success rewarded the author and his stout-
hearted wife.

The care some wives take of their husbands in sickness
is very touching. John Richard Green, the historian,
whose death seemed so untimely, is an instance of this.
His very life was prolonged in the most wonderful way
by the care and skill with which he was tended ; and it
was with and through his wife that the work was done
which he could not have done alone. She consulted the
authorities for him, examined into obscure points, and
wrote to his dictation. In this way, when he could not
work more than two hours in the day, and when often
some slight change in the weather would throw him
back and make work impossible for days or weeks, the
book was prepared which he published under the title
of The Making of England,

86 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

The husband's vow to "comfort" was never better
performed than by Cobbett. In his Advice to Young
Men " he says : "I began my young marriage days in
and near Philadelphia. At one of those times to which
I have just alluded, in the middle ot the burning hot
month of July, I was greatly afraid of fatal consequences
to my wife for want of sleep, she not having, after the
great danger was over, had any sleep for more than
forty-eight hours. All great cities in hot countries are,
I believe, full of dogs, and they, in the very hot weather,
keep up during the night a horrible barking and fighting
and howling. Upon the particular occasion to which
I am adverting they made a noise so terrible and so un-
remitted that it was next to impossible that even a person
in full health and free from pain should obtain a minute's
sleep. I was, about nine in the evening, sitting by the
bed. 'I do think/ said she, 'that I could go to sleep
now, if it were not for the dogs? Downstairs I went,
and out I sallied, in my shirt and trousers, and without
shoes and stockings ; and, going to a heap of stones
lying beside the road, set to work upon the dogs, going
backward and forward, and keeping them at two or
three hundred yards' distance from the house. I walked
thus the whole night, barefooted, lest the noise of my
shoes might possibly reach her ears ; and I remember
that the bricks of the causeway were, even in the night,
so hot as to be disagreeable to my feet. My exertions
produced the desired effect : a sleep of several hours was
the consequence, and, at eight o'clock in the morning,
off went I to a day's business which was to end at six
in the evening.

" Women are all patriots of the soil ; and when her
neighbours used to ask my wife whether all English
husbands were like hers, she boldly answered in the
affirmative. I had business to occupy the whole of my
time, Sundays and week-days, except sleeping hours ;
but I used to make time to assist her in the taking care
of her baby, and in all sorts of things : get up, light her

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 87

fire, boil her tea-kettle, carry her up warm water in cold
weather, take the child while she dressed herself and
got the breakfast ready, then breakfast, get her in water
and wood for the day, then dress myself neatly and sally
forth to my business. The moment that was over I
used to hasten back to her again j and I no more thought
of spending a moment away from her, unless business
compelled me, than I thought of quitting the country
and going to sea. The thunder and lightning are
tremendous in America compared with what they are
in England. My wife was at one time very much afraid
of thunder and lightning; and, as is the feeling of
all such women, and indeed all men too, she wantedf
company, and particularly her husband, in those times
of danger. I knew well of course that my presence
would not diminish the danger ; but, be I at what I might,
if within reach of home, I used to quit my business and
hasten to her the moment I perceived a thunder-storm
approaching. Scores of miles have I, first and last,
run on this errand in the streets of Philadelphia ! The
Frenchmen who were my scholars used to laugh at me
exceedingly on this aceount; and sometimes, when I
was making an appointment with them, they would say,
with a smile and a bow, ' Sauf le tonnerre toujours
Monsieur Cobbett \ ' *

Much is said both wise and otherwise in reference to
the obedience which a wife vows to yield to her husband.
One who wrote a sketch of the Rev. F. D. Maurice
tells us that he met him once at a wedding-breakfast.
Maurice proposed the health of the bride and bride-
groom. The lady turned round, and in rather bad
taste exclaimed, " Now, Mr. Maurice, I call you
to witness that I entertain no intention of obeying."
Maurice answered with his sad, sweet smile, "Ah,
madam, you little know the blessedness of obedience."

Of course no one believes that it is a wife's duty to
obey when her husband wishes her to act contrary to
the dictates of conscience. » As little is she expected

88 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

to conform to a standard of obedience and service such
as was laid down in a conversation overheard between
two children who were playing on the sands together.
Small boy to little girl : " Do you wish to be my wife ? "
.Little girl, after reflection : " Yes." Small boy : " Then
pull off my boots." We all rejoice in the fact that
woman's rights are very different now from what they
used to be, at least in Russia, where, Dr. Lansdell tells
us, anciently at a wedding the bridegroom took to church
a whip, and in one part of the ceremony lightly applied
it to the bride's back, in token that she was to be in
subjection. Is there not still, however, much truth in
the old couplet :

x Man, love thy wife ; thy husband, wife obey.
Wives are our hearts ; we should be head alway?

On a great many points concerning the pecuniary
or other interests of the family, the husband will usually
be the wisest, and may most properly be treated as
the senior or acting partner in the firm.

" The good wife," says Fuller, " commandeth her
husband in any equal matter, by constantly obeying
him. It was always observed, that what the English
gained of the French in battle by valour, the French
regained of the English in cunning by treaties. So if
the husband should chance by his power in his passion
to prejudice his wife's right, she wisely knoweth by
compounding and complying, to recover and rectify
it again." This is very much what the well-known lines
in Hiawatha teach —

As unto the bow the cord is

So unto the man is woman ;

Though she bends him, she obeys him ;

Though she draws him, yet she follows;

Useless each without the other !

But indeed it is a sign of something being wrong
between married people, wher^ the question which of

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 89

the two shall be subject to the other ever arises. It
will never do so when both parties love as they ought,
for then the struggle will be not who shall command
and control, but who shall serve and yield. As
Chaucer says :

When mastery cometh, then sweet Love anon,
Flappeth his nimble wings and soon away is flown.

90 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.
CHAPTER XL

" DRIVE GENTLY OVER THE STONES ! "

It were better to meet some dangers half-way, though
they come nothing near. — BACON.

Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck'd. —
MILTON.

" DRIVE gently over the stones ! " This piece of advice,
which is frequently given to inexperienced whips, may
be suggested metaphorically to the newly-married. On
the road upon which they have entered there are stony
places, which, if not carefully driven over, will almost
certainly upset the domestic coach. To accompany
one's wife harmoniously on an Irish car is easy compared
to the task of accompanying her over these stones on
the domestic car.

The first rock ahead which should be signalled
2 dangerous " is the first year of married life. As a
rule the first year either mars or makes a marriage.
During this period errors may be committed which will
cast a shadow over every year that follows. We agree
with Mrs. Jameson in thinking that the first year of
married life is not as happy as the second. People
have to get into the habit of being married, and there
are difficult lessons to be learned in the apprenticeship.

A lady once asked Dr. Johnson how in his dictionary
he came to; define pastern the knee of a horse ; he
immediately answered, " Ignorance, madam, pure
ignorance." This is the simple explanation of many
an accident that takes place at the commencement of
the matrimonial journey. The young couple have not
yet learned the dangerous places of the road, and, as
a consequence, they drive carelessly over them.

How many people starting in married life throw
happiness out of their grasp, and create troubles for

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 91

the rest of their days ! The cause may be generally
traced to selfishness, their conceit taking everything
that goes amiss as meant for a personal affront, and
their wounded self-esteem making life a burden hard
to bear, for themselves and others. We can all
recognise in every circle such cases ; we are all able
to read the moral elsewhere; but in our own case we
allow the small breach — that might be healed with very
little effort at first — to get wider and wider, and the
pair that should become closer and closer, gradually
not only cease to,, care for, but have a dread of each
other's society.

There is one simple direction which, if carefully
regarded, might long preserve the tranquillity of the
married life, and ensure no inconsiderable portion of
connubial happiness to the observers of it : it is — to
beware of the first dispute. " Man and wife," says
Jeremy Taylor, "are equally concerned to avoid all
offences of each other in the beginning of their con-
versation ; every little thing can blast an infant blossom ;
and the breath of the south can shake the little rings
of the vine, when first they begin to curl like the locks
of a new-weaned boy : but when by age and consolida-
tion they stiffen into the hardness of a stem, and have,
by the warm embraces of the sun and the kisses of
heaven, brought forth their clusters, they can endure
the storms of the north, and the loud noises of a tempest,
and yet never be broken. So are the early unions of
an unfixed marriage; watchful and observant, jealous
and busy, inquisitive and careful, and apt to take
alarm at every unkind word. After the hearts of the
man and the wife are endeared and hardened by a
mutual confidence and experience, longer than artifice
and pretence can last, there are a great many
remembrances, and some things present, that dash all
little unkindnesses in pieces."

Every little dispute between man and wife is
dangerous. It forces good humour out of its channel,

92 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

undermines affection, and insidiously, though perhaps
insensibly, wears out and, at last, entirely destroys that
cordiality which is the life and soul of matrimonial
felicity. As, however, " it's hardly in a body's power
to keep at times from being sour," undue importance
ought not to be attached to "those little tiffs that
sometimes cast a shade on wedlock." Often they are, as
the poet goes on to observe, " love in masquerade :

And family jars, look we but o'er the rim,
Are filled with honey, even to the brim."

In the Life of St. Francis de Sales we are told that
the saint did not approve of the saying, " Never rely
on a reconciled enemy. He rather preferred a contrary
maxim, and said that a quarrel between friends,
when made up, added a new tie to friendship; as
experience shows that the calosity formed round a
broken bone makes it stronger than before.

Beware of jealousy; "it is the green-eyed monster,
which doth make the meat it feeds on." Here is an
amusing case in point. A French lady who was jealous
of her husband determined to watch his movements.
One day, when he told her he was going to Versailles,
she followed him, keeping him in sight until she missed
him in a passage leading to the railway station. Looking
about her for a few minutes, she saw a man coming out
of a glove-shop with a rather overdressed lady. Blinded
with rage and jealousy, she fancied it was her husband,
and without pausing for a moment to consider, bounced
suddenly up to him and gave him three or four stinging
boxes on the ear. The instant the gentleman turned
round she discovered her mistake, and at the same
moment caught sight of her husband, who had merely
called at a tobacconist's, and was now crossing the
street. There was nothing for it but to faint in the
arms of the gentleman she had attacked ; while the
other lady moved away, to avoid a scene. The stranger,

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 93

astonished to find an unknown lady in his arms, was
further startled by a gentleman seizing him by the
collar and demanding to know what he meant by
embracing that lady. "Why, sir, she boxed my ears,
and then fainted," exclaimed the innocent victim. "She
is my wife," shouted the angry husband, " and would
never have struck you without good cause." Worse
than angry words would probably have followed
had not the cause of the whole misunderstanding
recovered sufficiently to explain how it had aU
happened.

A jealous wife is generally considered a proper
subject for ridicule; and a woman ought to conceal
from her husband any feeling of the kind. Her
suspicions may be altogether groundless, and she may
be tormenting herself with a whole train of imaginary
evils.

On the other hand a husband is bound to abstain
from even the appearance of preferring any one else
to his wife. When in the presence of others he should
indulge her laudable pride by showing that he thinks
her an object of importance and preference.

In his Advice to Young Men Cobbett gives this
interesting bit of autobiography. " For about two or
three years after I was married, I, retaining some of
my military manners, used, both in France and America,
to romp most famously with the girls that came in my
way; till one day at Philadelphia, my wife said to
me in a very gentle manner, ' Don't do that, / do not
like it.* That was quite enough ; I had never thought
on the subject before ; one hair of her head was more
dear to me than all the other women in the world, and
this I knew that she knew. But I now saw that this
was not all that she had a right to from me ; I saw that
she had the further claim upon me that I should abstain
from everything that might induce others to believe
that there was any other woman for whom, even
if I were at liberty, I had any affection. I beseech

94 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

young married men to bear this in mind ; for on some
trifle of this sort the happiness or misery of a long life
frequently turns."

There may be a fanaticism in love as well as in belief,
and where people love much they are apt to be exacting
one to the other. But although jealousy does imply
love, such love as consists in a craving for the affection
of its object, it is love which is largely dashed
with selfishness. It is incompatible with love of the
highest order, for where that exists there is no
dread of not being loved enough in return. In this
relation as well as in the highest, " There is no fear
in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear
hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in
love."

It is generally admitted that conjugal affection largely
depends on mutual confidence. A friend quoted this
sentiment the other day in a smoking-room, and added
that he made it a rule to tell his wife everything that
happened, and in this way they avoided any misunder-
standing. " Well, sir," remarked another gentleman
present, not to be outdone in generosity, " you are not
so open and frank as I am, for I tell my wife a good
many things that never happen." "Oh!" exclaimed
a third, "I am under no necessity to keep my wife
informed regarding my affairs. She can find out five
times as much as I know myself without the least
trouble."

" How," said a gentleman to a friend who wished
to convey a matter of importance to a lady without
communicating directly with her, "how can you be
certain of her reading the letter, seeing that you have
directed it to her husband ? " " That I have managed
without the possibility of failure," was the answer ; " she
will open it to a certainty, for I have put the word
* private ' in the corner."

These anecdotes put in a lively way the well-known
fact that it is impossible for married people to keep

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 95

secrets the one from the other. But even to make the
attempt is to enter upon ground so dangerous that
scarcely any amount of cautious driving will prevent
a catastrophe. Unless husband and wife trust each other
all in all, the result will be much the same as if
they trusted not at all.

We believe that the Delilahs are few who would sell
their Samsons to the Philistines when these Samsons
have told them the secret source of their great strength.
Still, there are secrets entrusted to the clergyman,
the physician, the lawyer, the legislator to betray
which, even to a wife, would be dishonourable and
disgraceful.

A case beautifully illustrating this difficult point in
matrimonial relations occurs in the memoirs of Lady
Fanshawe, wife of Sir Richard Fanshawe, who was
a faithful Royalist during the civil war. Soon after
Lady Fanshawe's marriage, she was instigated by some
crafty ladies of the court to obtain from her husband
a knowledge of some secret political events. The
matter is best described in her own words : " And now
I thought myself a perfect queen and my husband so
glorious a crown, that I more valued myself to be called
by his name than to be born a princess, for I knew
him very wise and very good, and his soul doted on
me ; upon which confidence I will tell you what happened.
My Lady Rivers, a brave woman, and one that had
suffered many thousand pounds' loss for the King,
and whom I had a great reverence for, and she a kind-
ness for me as a kinswoman — in discourse she tacitly
commended the knowledge of State affairs, and that
some women were very happy in a good understanding
thereof, as my Lady Aubingny, Lady Isabel Thynne,
and divers others, and yet none was at first more
capable than I j that in the night she knew there came
a post from Paris from the Queen, and that she would
be extremely glad to hear what the Queen commanded
the King in order to his affairs ; saying, if I would ask

96 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

my husband privately, he would tell me what he found
in the packet, and I might tell her. I that was young
and innocent, and to that day had never in my mouth,
what news ? — began to think there was more in inquiring
into public affairs than I thought of, and that it being
a fashionable thing, would make me more beloved of
my husband, if that had been possible, than I was.
When my husband returned home from council, after
welcoming him, as his custom ever was, he went with
his handful of papers into his study for an hour or
more ; I followed him : he turned hastily and said,
'What would'st thou have, my life?' I told him,
* I heard the Prince had received a packet from the
Queen, and I guessed it was that in his hands, and
I desired to know what was in it.' He smilingly replied,
' My love, I will immediately come to thee ; pray thee
go, for I am very busy." When he came out of his
closet I revived my suit ; he kissed me and talked
of other things. At supper, I would eat nothing; he
as usual sat by me, and drank often to me, which
was his custom, and was full of discourse to company
that was at table. Going to bed I asked again, and
said I could not believe he loved me, if he refused to
tell me all he knew; but he answered nothing, but
stopped my mouth with kisses. So we went to bed ;
I cried and he went to sleep. Next morning early,
as his custom was, he was called to rise, but began
to discourse with me first ; to which I made no reply ;
he rose, came on the other side of the bed and kissed
me, and drew the curtain softly and went to court.
When he came home to dinner, he presently came
to me as was usual, and when I had him by the hand,
I said, *Thou dost not care to see me troubled;' to
which he, taking me in his arms, answered, ' My dearest
soul, nothing upon earth can afflict me like that; and
when you asked me of my business, it was wholly
out of my power to satisfy thee, for my life and fortune
shall be thine, and every thought of my heart in which

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 97

the trust I am in may not be revealed ; but my honour
is my own, which I cannot preserve if I communicate
the Prince's affairs; and pray thee with this answer
rest satisfied/ So great was his reason and goodness,
that upon consideration it made my folly appear to
me so vile, that from that day till the day of his
death, I never thought fit to ask him any business
but what he communicated freely to me, in order to
his estate and family."

When a man comes home tired, hungry, and put out
about something that has gone wrong in business, this
is not the time for his wife to order him to stand and
deliver his secret troubles. Rather, she should give
him a well-cooked dinner and say little or nothing.
Later on in the evening, when he is rested and has
smoked a pipe of peace, he will be only too glad to
give her his confidence in return for her sympathetic
treatment of him. It seems to me that there is
more of vulgar familiarity than of confidence in
a man and wife at all times opening each other's
letters. A sealed letter is 'sacred; and all persons
like to have the first reading of their own letters.
Why should a close relationship abrogate respectful
courtesy ?

Artemus Ward tells us that when he was at Salt Lake
he was introduced to Brigham Young's mother-in-law.
" I can't exactly tell you how many there is of her, but
it's a good deal." Married people require to drive
gently when there is in the way the stumbling-block of
"a good deal" of mother- or other relations-in-law.
Certainly Adam and Eve were in paradise in this respect.
" When I want a nice snug day all to myself," says an

r ingenuous wife, " I tell George dear mother is coming,
and then I see nothing of him till one in the morning."
" Are yourdomestic relations agreeable?" was the question
put to an unhappy-looking specimen of humanity. " Oh,
my domestic relations are all right; it is my wife's

D relations that are causing the trouble." It is true we

98 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

read in the Graphic a year or two ago an exception to
the usual dislike to mothers-in-law, but the exception
was scarcely reassuring. A well-dressed young woman
of nineteen informed a magistrate that her own
mother had run away with her husband. This mater
pulchrior came to stay with her filia pttlchra^ won the
affections of the husband, and, at last, withdrew
him from his hearth and home. Still it is the
duty of people to keep on terms of at least
friendly neutrality with their relations-in-law. Where
there is disunion there are generally faults on both
sides.

We know of a working-man who on the eve of his
marriage signed a promise to abstain from intoxicating
liquor. He put the document into a frame and presented
it to his wife after the wedding as a marriage settle-
ment. And certainly there cannot be a better marriage
settlement than for a young husband to settle his
habits.

The young husband or wife who is in the least degree
careless in the use of intoxicating drinks should read
the following account which Mr. Gough gives of a
case which he met in one of the convict prisons of
America. "I was attracted, while speaking to the
prisoners in the chapel, by the patient, gentle look of
one of the convicts who sat before me, whose whole
appearance was that of a mild-tempered, quiet man.
After the service, one of the prison officers, in reply
to my question, stated that this same man was serving
out a life term. I asked what was the possible crime
for which he was serving a life term in a State prison.
'Murder.' 'Murder?1 'Yes; he murdered his wife.'
Having asked if I might have an interview with him,
my request was granted, and I held a conversation
with him. 4 My friend, I do not wish to ask you any
questions that will be annoying; but I was struck by
your appearance, and was so much surprised when I
heard of your crime, that I thought I would like to

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 99

ask you a question. May I ? * ' Certainly, sir/ ' Then
why did you commit the crime ? What led you to it ? '
Then came such a pitiful story. He said : ' I loved
my wife, but I drank to excess. She was a good
woman; she never complained; come home when or
how I might, she never scolded. I think I never heard
a sharp word from her. She would sometimes look at
me with such a pitying look that went to my heart;
sometimes it made me tender, and I would cry, and
promise to do better; at other times it would make
me angry. I almost wished she would scold me,
rather than look at me with that patient earnestness.
I knew I was breaking her heart; but I was a slave
to drink. Though I loved her, I knew I was killing
her. One day I came home drunk, and as I entered
the room I saw her sitting at the table, her face resting
on her hand. Oh, my God ! I think I see her now !
As I came in she lifted up her face ; there were tears
there ; but she smiled and said, " Well, William." I
remember just enough to know that I was mad. The
devil entered into me. I rushed into the kitchen,
seized my gun, and deliberately shot her as she sat
by that table. I am in prison for life, and have no
desire to be released. If a pardon was offered me, I
think I should refuse it. Buried here in this prison,
I wait till the end comes. I trust God has forgiven
me for Christ's sake. I have bitterly repented ; I repent
every day. Oh, the nights when in the darkness I see
her face — see her just as she looked on me that fatal
day ! I shall rejoice when the time comes. I pray
that I may meet her in heaven.1 This was said
with sobbings and tears that were heart-breaking
to hear."

" There goes me but for the grace of God ! " " What,
is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? "
No 1 not a dog, but a young man or a young woman who
is liable to forget that " small habits well pursued betimes
may reach the dignity of crimes." If you do not

ioo HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

measure your liquor with as much care as strong
medicine ; if you are not on your guard against those
drinking habits of society and business which first draw,
then drag, and then haul — beware lest tyrant custom
make you a slave to what has been called " the most
authentic incarnation of the principle of evil."

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 101

CHAPTER XII.

FURNISHING.

By wisdom is a house built ; by understanding it is
established ; and by knowledge the chambers are filled
with all pleasant and precious treasures." — Solomon's
Practical Wisdom.

We cannot arrest sunsets nor carve mountains, but
we may turn every English home, if we choose, into a
picture which shall be no counterfeit, but the true and
perfect image of life indeed. — RUSKIN.

A CONDITION of pleasantness in a house has a real power
in refining and raising the characters of its inmates ; so
home should not only be a haven of rest, peace, and
sympathy, but should have an element of beauty in all
its details. Ugliness and discomfort blunt the sensi-
bilities and lower the spirits. D'Israeli said, " Happiness
is atmosphere," and from this point of view a few words
about furnishing may not be out of place in our inquiry
as to how to be happy though married. Certainly the
fitting up and arranging of a home will not appear un-
important to those who think with Dr. Johnson that it
is by studying little things that we attain the great art
of having as little misery and as much happiness as
possible. " Pound St. Paul's church into atoms, and
consider any single atom j it is, to be sure, good for
nothing ; but put these atoms together, and you have
St. Paul's church. So it is with human felicity, which
is made up of many ingredients, each of which may be
shown to be very insignificant."

102 HOW 'TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

The expense of furnishing is often a source of con-
siderable anxiety to young people about to marry. We
think, however, that this matrimonial care is, or should
be, much more lightly felt than in past years. Compe-
tition has made furniture cheaper, and it is now
considered " bad form " to crowd rooms or to have in
them the large heavy things that were so expensive.
Elegance displayed in little things is the order of the
day. A few light chairs of different sizes and shapes,
a small lounge, one or two little tables, the floor polished
round the edges and covered in the centre with a square
of carpet, or, if the whole room be stained, with Oriental
rugs where required ; the windows hung with some
kind of light drapery — what more do newly-married
people require in their drawing-room ? Oh ! we have
forgotten the piano, and we suppose it is inevitable, but
it can easily be hired.

It is a great gain for a young couple to be compelled
to economise, for, rich as they may become afterwards,
habits of thrift never quite leave them. Their furniture
may be scanty and some of it not very new, but common
things can be prettily covered, and the dullest of rooms
is set off by the knick-knacks that came in so plentifully
among the bridal spoils. Besides, if they start with
everything they want, there is nothing to wish for, and
no pleasure in adding to their possessions. George
Eliot has a subtle remark about the "best society,
where no one makes an invidious display of anything in
particular, and the advantages of the world are taken
with that high-bred depreciation which follows from
being accustomed to them."

No doubt there will be pictures and photographs, the
hanging of which occasions considerable discussion, and
perhaps involves the first serious divergence of opinion.
We must remember, however, that it is much better to
have no pictures than bad ones, and that photographs
of scenery are rarely decorative. As regards oncta

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 103

relations when they are really decorative, even Mr.
Oscar Wilde can see no reason why their photographs
should not be hung on the walls, though he hopes that,
if called on to make a stand between the principles of
domestic affection and decorative art, the latter may
have the first place.

It is a safe rule to have nothing in our houses that
we do not know to be useful or think to be beautiful.
We should show our love of art and beauty in our
surroundings, and bring it to bear in the selection of
the smallest household trifle. To have things tasteful
and pretty costs no more than to have them ugly ; but
it costs a great deal more trouble. Simplicity, appro-
priateness, harmony of colour — these produce the best
results. When we enter a room, the first feeling ought
to be, " How comfortable ! " and the second, as we
glance quickly round to discover why, ought to be,
" How beautiful ! " Not a touch too much nor too
little. The art is to conceal art. Directly affectation
enters, beauty goes out. But while there should be
nothing bizarre in our method of furnishing, rooms
should reflect the individuality of their owners. They
should never look as if they were furnished by con-
tract. People should allow their own taste to have
its way. Whatever we have, let it not be flimsy,
but good of its kind. Good things are cheapest in
the end, and it is economy to employ good dependable
tradespeople.

When he heard of the occurrence of some piece of
mischief, George the Fourth used to ask, " Who is she ? "
This question may be asked with much more reason
when we enter a pretty room. Who is she whose
judgment and fingers have so arranged these un-
considered trifles as to make out of very little an effect
so charming? Compare a bachelor's house with the
same house after its master has taken to himself a
helpmate. " Bless thee, Bottom 1 bless thee ! thou art

104 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

translated ! " the friends of his former state may well
exclaim. Of course we are supposing the lady's head
to be furnished, for if that do not contain a certain
amount of common sense, good taste, and power of
observation, the result will soon be observed in her
house. A drawing-room should be for use and not for
show merely, and should be furnished accordingly. It
should be tidy, but not painfully tidy. Self-respect
should lead us to have things nice in our homes,
whether the eyes of company are to see them or not.
It was surely right of Robinson Crusoe to make his
solitary cave look as smart as possible. Who does not
respect the wife whose dinner-table is prettily adorned
with flowers even on days when no one but her
husband has the honour of dining with her ?

To furnish the kitchen is a troublesome and un-
satisfactory business. It is unsatisfactory because one
expends on kitchen utensils, which are rather dear, a
considerable amount of money without having much to
show. And it is troublesome to have to distinguish
between the many implements a cook really does require
and those which she only imagines to be necessary.
Still, cook must be supplied with every appliance that is
really necessary. Without these there may be an
expenditure of time out of all proportion to her task.
On the equipoise of that lady's temper depends to a
not inconsiderable extent the comfort of the house.
Have in the kitchen a good clock, and teach your
servants to take a pleasure in making sweet and bright
their own special chambers.

Our present sanitary ideas will tolerate no longer
curtains on beds, or heavy carpets on the floors of
sleeping apartments. Both foster dust, and dust con-
ceals the germs of disease. That carpets are sometimes
made a too convenient receptable for dust is evident
from the answer that was once given by a housemaid.
Professing to have become converted to religion, she was

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 105

asked for a proof of the happy change, and thus replied :
\"Now," she said, "I sweep under the mats." For bed-
rooms there should be narrow, separate, tight-woven
strips of carpet around the bed and in front of furniture
only. These are easy to shake, and in every sense in
harmony with the simplicity and cleanliness which, if
health is to be preserved, must pervade the bedroom.
The more air it contains the better, and hence every-
thing superfluous should be Vanished from it. But we
shall not specify the different things which, in our
opinion, should, or should not, be found in the several
rooms of a house, for after all it is the arrangement of
furniture rather than the furniture itself that makes the
difference.

If the question be asked, Is it better to pick up
furniture at auctions or to buy it in shops? we reply,
Avoid auctions. Things are varnished up to the
eye, and it is seldom impossible to examine them.
So you generally find on returning home from a sale
that your purchases are by no means what they
seemed.

As regards the expense of furnishing a small house
such as young housekeepers of the middle class usually
hire when first they settle down in life, this of course
varies with circumstances, but even one hundred pounds
ought nearly to suffice. To estimate the cost rightly,
one should know the tastes of the people concerned, their
social position, the size of their house, and the style
of the locality in which they propose to live. Very good
furniture can sometimes be obtained second-hand, but
one must be on their guard against " bargains " that are
worthless. There are certain articles, such as lamps,
beds, and bedding, that should as a general rule be
purchased new.

People are generally in too great haste when fur-
nishing. They should be prudent, deliberate, and
wait with their eyes open until they see the sort of

io6 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

things that will suit them. They should buy the most
instantly necessary articles first with ready money, and
add to these as they can afford it to carry out ideas
formed by observation. They should buy what can
be easily replaced after legitimate wear and tear, what
their servants can properly attend to, and what will
save labour and time.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 107

CHAPTER XIIL

MARRIED PEOPLE'S MONEY.

Never treat money affairs with levity — money is
character. — SIR E. BULWER LYTTON.

A SCOTCH minister, preaching against the love of money,
had frequently repeated that it was "the root of all
evil." Walking home from the church one old person
said to another, "An wasna the minister strang upon
the money ? " " Nae doubt," said the other, and added,
"Ay, but it's grand to hae the wee bit siller in your
hand when ye gang an errand." So too, in spite of all
that love-in-a-cottage theorists may say, " it's grand to
hae the wee bit siller " when marrying ; unless, indeed,
we believe that mortality is one of the effects of matri-
mony, as did the girl, who, on meeting a lady whose
service she had lately left, and being asked, "Well,
Mary, where do you live now ? " answered, " Please
ma'am, I don't live now — I'm married." To marry for
love and work for silver is quite right, but there should
be a reasonable chance of getting work to do and some
provision for a rainy day. It is only the stupidity which
is without anxiety, that complacently marries on "noth-
ing a week ; and that uncertain — very ! " And yet such
flying in the face of Providence is often spoken of as
being disinterested and heroic, and the quiverfuls of
children resulting from it are supposed to be blessed.
As if it were a blessing to give children appetites of
hunger and thirst, and nothing to satisfy them.

On the other hand, there is some truth in the saying
that "what will keep one will keep two." There are
bachelors who are so ultra-prudent, and who hold such

io8 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

absurd opinions as to the expense of matrimony, that,
although they have enough money they have not enough
courage to enter the state. Pitt used to say that he
could not afford to marry, yet his butcher's bill was
so enormous that some one has calculated it as affording
his servants about fourteen pounds of meat a day, each
man and woman ! For the more economical regulation
of his household, if for no other reason, he should have
taken to himself a wife.

Newly-married people should be careful not to pitch
their rate of expenditure higher than they can hope to
continue it; and they should remember that, as Lord
Bacon said, "it is less dishonourable to abridge petty
charges (expenses) than to stoop to petty gettings." That
was excellent advice which Dr. Johnson gave to Boswell
when the latter inherited his paternal estate : " You,
dear sir, have now a new station, and have, therefore,
new cares and new employments. Life, as Cowley seems
to say, ought to resemble a well-ordered poem ; of which
one rule generally received is, that the exordium should
be simple, and should promise little. Begin your new
course of life with the least show, and the least expense
possible; you may at pleasure increase both, but you
cannot easily diminish them. Do not think your estate
your own while any man can call upon you for money
which you cannot pay; therefore begin with timorous
parsimony. Let it be your first care not to be in any
man's debt."

The thrifty wife of Benjamin Franklin felt it a gala
day indeed when, by long accumulated small savings,
she was able to surprise her husband one morning with
a china cup and a silver spoon, from which to take his
breakfast. Franklin was shocked: "You see how
luxury creeps into families in' spite of principles," he
said. When his meal was over he went to the store,
and rolled home a wheelbarrow full of papers through
the streets with his own hands, lest folks should get wind
of the china cup, and say he was above his business.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 109

Although the creeping in of luxury is to be guarded
against at the commencement of married life, people
should learn to grow rich gracefully. It is no part of
wisdom to depreciate the little elegances and social
enjoyments of our homes. Those who can afford it act
wisely when they furnish their houses with handsome
furniture, cover the walls with suggestive paintings, and
collect expensive books, for these things afford refined
enjoyment. One day a gentleman told Dr. Johnson
that he had bought a suit of lace for his wife. Johnson :
"Well, sir, you have done a good thing, and a wise
thing." "I have done a good thing," said the gentle-
man, "but I do not know that I have done a wise thing."
Johnson-. " Yes, sir, no money is better spent than what
is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased
that his wife is dressed as well as other people ; and a
wife is pleased that she is dressed."

We should be particular' about money matters, but not
penurious. The penny soul never, it is said, came to
twopence. There is that withholdeth more than is meet,
but it tendeth to poverty. People are often saving at the
wrong place, and spoil the ship for a halfpenny worth of
tar. They spare at the spigot, and let all run away at
the bunghole.

She is the wise wife who can steer between penurious-
ness and such recklessness as is described in the following
cutting from an American periodical. " My dear fellow,"
said Lavender, "it's all very nice to talk about
economising and keeping a rigid account of expenses,
and that sort of thing, but I've tried it. Two weeks ago
I stepped in on my way home Saturda)' night, and I
bought just the gayest little Russian leather, cream-laid
account-book you ever saw, and a silver pencil to match
it. I said to my wife after supper : ' My dear, it seems
to me it costs a lot of money to keep house.' She
sighed and said : * I know it does, Lavvy ; but I'm sute
I can't help it. I'm just as economical as I can be.
I don't spend half as much for candy as you do for

no HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

cigars.' I never take any notice of personalities, so I
sailed right ahead. * I believe, my dear, that if we were
to keep a strict account of everything we spend we could
tell just where to cut down. I've bought you a little
account-book, and every Monday morning I'll give you
some money, and you can set it down on one side ; and
then, during the week, you can set down on the other
side everything you spend. And then on Saturday night
we can go over it and see just where the money goes,
and how we can boil things down a little.' Well, sir, she
was just delighted — thought it was a first-rate plan, and
the pocket account-book was lovely — regular David
Copperfield and Dora business. Well, sir, the next
Saturday night we got through supper, and she brought
out that account-book as proud as possible, and handed
it over for inspection. On one side was, ' Received from
Lavvy, 50 dols.' That's all right ! Then I looked on
the other page, and what do you think was there?
* Spent it all / ' Then I laughed, and of course she cried ;
and we gave up the account-book racket on the spot by
mutual consent. Yes, sir, I've been there, and I know
what domestic economy means, I tell you. Let's have
a cigar."

It is the fear of this sort of thing, and especially of
extravagance in reference to dress, that confirms many
men in bachelorship. A society paper tell us that at
a recent dance given at the West-end, a married lady
of extravagant habits impertinently asked a wealthy old
bachelor if he remained single because he could not
afford to keep a wife. " My innocent young friend," was
the reply, "I could afford to keep three; but I'm not
rich enough to pay the milliner's bills of one."

A wife who puts conscience into the management of
her husband's money should not be obliged to account
to him for the exact manner in which she lays out each
penny in the pound. An undue interference on his part
will cause much domestic irritation, and may have a bad
influence on social morals.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED, in

In Memoirs of the Life of Colonel
his wife says, " So liberal was he to her, and of so
generous a temper, that he hated the mention of severed
purses ; his estate being so much at her disposal that
he never would receive an account of anything she
expended."

No one can feel dignified, free, and happy without the
control of a certain amount of money for the graces, the
elegant adornments, and, above all, for the charities of
life. The hard-drawn line of simply paying the bills
closes a thousand avenues to gentle joys and pleasures
in a woman's daily life.

We would advise all wives to strike the iron when
hot, so to speak, by getting their husbands, before the
ardour of the honeymoon cools, to give them an annual
allowance. The little unavoidable demands on a
husband's purse, to which a wife is so frequently compelled
to have recourse, are very apt to create bickering and
discord ; and when once good-humour is put out of the
way, it is not such an easy matter to bring it back again.

A Chicago young lady, on being asked the usual
question in which the words "love, honour, and obey"
occur, made the straightforward reply ; " Yes, I will, if
he does what he promises me financially." The conduct
of some husbands almost justified this answer.

As regards the important subject of Life Insurance,
there are few husbandi and fathers who can afford to be
indifferent to the possibility of making adequate and
immediate provision for those dependent upon them, in
case of their sudden removal.

This matter of Life Insurance should be settled before'
marriage, as well as all other monetary and legal arrange-
ments that have to be made either with the wife that is
to be, or with her relations, because post-matrimonial
business details may introduce notes of discord into what
might have been a harmonious home. " When I courted
her,. I took lawyer's advice, and signed every letter to my
love-*-* Yours, without prejudice I' ° It may not be

ii2 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

necessary to be quite so cautious as the lover who tells
us this; but he was certainly right in transacting his
legal business before marriage rather than afterwards.

" Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as
an inconvenience ; you will find it a calamity." Douglas
Jerrold says that " the shirt of Nessus was a shirt not
paid for." Those who would be happy though married
must pitch their scale of living a degree below their means,
rather than up to them ; but this can only be done by
keeping a careful account of income and expenditure.
John Locke strongly advised this course; " Nothing/*
he said, " is likelier to keep a man within compass than,
having constantly before his eyes the state of his affairs in
a regular course of account." The Duke of Wellington
kept an accurate detailed account of all the moneys
received and expended by him. " I make a point," he
said, " of paying my own bills, and I advise every one
to do the same. Formerly I used to trust a confidential
servant to pay them, but I was cured of that folly by
receiving one morning, to my great surprise, dues of a
year or two's standing. The fellow had speculated with
my money, and left my bills unpaid." Talking of debt,
his remark was, " It makes a slave of a man." Washing-
ton was as particular as Wellington was in matters of
business detail. He did not disdain to scrutinise the
smallest outgoings of his household, even when holding
the office of President of the American Union.

When Maginn, always drowned in debt, was asked
what he paid for his wine, he replied that he did not
know; but he believed they "put something down in
a book." "This putting down in a book " has proved
the ruin of a great many people. The regular weekly
payment of tradesmen is not only more honest, but
far more economical. I know a wife who says that she
cannot afford to get into the books of tradesmen, and
who prides herself upon the fact that she will never haunt
her husband after her death in the shape of an unpaid
bill. These principles will induce married people to

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 113

always try to have a fund reserved for sickness, the
necessity of a change of abode, and other contingencies.

Perfect confidence as regards money matters should
exist between married people. In a letter to a young
lady upon her marriage, Swift says, " I think you ought
to be well informed how much your husband's revenue
amounts to, and be so good a computer as to keep
within it that part of the management which falls to your
share, and not to put yourself in the number of those
polite ladies who think they gain a great point when they
have teased their husbands to buy them a new equipage,
a laced head, or a fine'petticoat, without once considering
what long score remained unpaid to the butcher,"

With regard to keeping up appearances, it must be
remembered that few people can afford to disregard them
entirely. A shabby hat that in a rich man would pass
for perhaps an amiable eccentricity, might conceivably
cause the tailor to send in his bill to a poorer customer.
In this matter, as in so many others, we may act from
a right or from a wrong motive. Nowhere is the attempt
to keep up appearances more praiseworthy than in the
case of those who have to housekeep upon very small
incomes. The cotter's wife in Burns's poem who—-

Wi* her needle and her sheers,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new —

deserves the title of heroine for her efforts to keep up
appearances.

But the senseless competition that consists in giving
large entertainments, the huge " meat-shows " which go
under the name of dinner-parties, have no tendency to
promote true happiness. Homes are made sweet by
simplicity and freedom from affectation, and these are also
the qualities that put guests at their ease, and make
them feel at home. A Dublin lady took a world of
trouble to provide a variety of dishes, and have all cooked
with great skill, for an entertainment she was to giv* ta

XX4 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

honour of Dean Swift. But from the first bit that was
tasted she did not cease to undervalue the courses, and
to beg indulgence for the shortcomings of the cook.
" Hang it," said Swift, after the annoyance had gone on
a little, " if everything is as bad as you say, I'll go home
and get a herring dressed for myself."

I once heard of a lady, who, not being prepared for
the unexpected visitors, sent to the confectioner's for
some tarts to help out the dinner. All would have gone
off well, but that the lady, wishing to keep up appearances,
said to the servant: "Ah! what are those tarts?"
" Fourpence apiece, ma'am," was the reply.

There are thousands of women in these islands who
cannot marry. But why can they not marry ? Because
they have false notions about respectability. And so
long as this is the case, young men will do well to decline
the famous advice, " Marry early — yes, marry early, and
marry often."

" Why," asked a Sussex labourer, " should I give a
woman half my victuals for cooking the other half?"
Imagine the horror of this anti-matrimonial reasoner if it
were proposed that he should give half his victuals for
not cooking at all, or doing anything except keeping up
appearances. " He was reputed," says Bacon, " one of
the wise men that made answer to the question, when
a man should marry ? A young man not yet, an elder
man not at all." This answer would not appear so wise,
if we had less erroneous notions on the subject of keeping
up appearances.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUQH MARRIED. 115

CHAPTER XIV.

THE MANAGEMENT OF SERVANTS.
A good mistress makes a good servant.— Proverb.

IN England materfamilias is always complaining ot
servant difficulties. Those, however, who have lived
in some of our colonies know that the very thought of an
English servant conveys a certain soothing sensation to
feelings that have been harassed by the servants — if we
may so name such tyrants — in these places. A friend of
mine in Bermuda wished to hire a nurse. One day,, as
she was sitting in her verandah, a coloured person ap-
peared before her and suggested, laying great emphasis
on the words in italics, " Are you the woman that wants
a lady to nurse your baby ? "

The servants in this and some other parts of the world
consider themselves not merely equal but much superior
to their employers, and there is a consequent difficulty
in managing them. If you show any disinclination to
their giving to friends much of the food with which you
had hoped to sustain your family, they will disappear
from your establishment without giving the slightest
warning. A servant wishes to keep one or two members
of her family in your house. If you dare to object, your
widely-spread reputation for meanness will prevent any
other servant applying for your situation for months.
In a word, the employers of these helpful beings are
every day reminded of the servant who said to his master :
" I don't wish to be unreasonable, but I want three things,
sir : more wages, less work, and I should like to have
the keys of the wine-cellar."

Though matters are not quite so bad at home, there

u6 HOW, TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

are nevertheless many much-tried masters and mistresses.
Certainly some of them deserve to suffer. They have
not given the very least attention to the art of managing
servants. As parents spoil their children and wonder at
the results, so do these masters and mistresses their
servants. At one time they provoke them to anger about
trifles, at other times they allow them to do as they like.
Now they treat them with extreme coldness, on other
occasions undue familiarity is permitted. In a word, they
forget the fact that there is a common human nature
between the kitchen and the parlour which must be
admitted and well studied.

The ancient Romans, though they were heathen, and
though with them servants meant slaves, included in the
idea oifamitia their servants as well as their children.
So, too, it was once amongst ourselves. Servants used
to " enter the family," and share to some degree its joys
and cares, while they received from it a corresponding
amount of interest and sympathy. All this is changed.
Servants are now rolling-stones that gather no moss
either for themselves or their employers. They never
dream of considering themselves members of the family,
to stick to it as it to them through all difficulties not
absolutely overwhelming. To them " master" is merely
the man who pays, and "missis" the woman who
"worrits." They think that they should change their
employers as readily as their dresses, and never imagine
that there could be between themselves and them any
common interest. Only the other day I heard of a lady
who had in one year as many as fourteen cooks ! How
could this mistress be expected to take any interest in or
to consider herself responsible for the well-being of such
birds of passage ?

And yet surely the heads of a household are nearly as
responsible for their servants as they are for their own
children. We are the keepers of these our brothers and
sisters, and are in a great measure guilty of the vices we
tempt them to commit. A lady was engaged in domestic

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED, xi)

affairs, when some one rang the street-door bell, and th«
Roman Catholic servant-girl was bidden to say that her
mistress was not at home. She answered, " Yes, ma'am*
and when I confess to the priest, shall I confess it as your
sin or mine ? "

It is an unquestioned fact that many of the faults
of servants are due to a want of due care on the part
of their mistresses, who put up with badly-done work
and make dishonesty easy by leaving things about.

If we want really good servants we must make them
ourselves ; so even from selfish motives we should
do all we can to influence them for good. But it is
much easier to mar than to make, and with servants
the easiest way of doing this is to let them see that we
are afraid of them. People spoil their servants from
fear oftener than from regard. Some are afraid of the
manner of their servants. They pass over many faults
because they do not like the sulky looks and impertinent
reply with which a rebuke is received.

Fifty years ago servants might be allowed to consider
the warning of masters as a poor attempt at wit, as the
Scotch coachman evidently did who, on being dismissed,
replied, " Na, na; I drove ye to your christening, and I'll
drive ye yet to your burial ; " and the cook who answered
in similar circumstances, "It's nae use ava gieing me
warning; gif ye dinna ken when ye hae gotten a gude
servant, I ken when I hae a gude master." As, how-
ever, servants are now seldom attached to a family
by old associations, they look upon the withdrawal of
notice as a sign of weakness, and give themselves airs
accordingly.

We should give our orders in a polite but firm
manner, like one accustomed to be obeyed. It some*
times simplifies matters considerably to make a servant
understand that she must either give in or go out.
When fault has to be found, let it be done sharply and
once for all, but nagging is dispiriting and intolerable.
" Why do you desire to leave me ? " said a gentleman

1x8 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

to his footman. " Because, to speak the truth, I cannot
bear your temper." "To be sure, I am passionate, but
my passion is no sooner on than it's off." "Yes,"
replied the servant, "but it's no sooner off than its
on." Still we must never forget that the greatest
firmness is the greatest mercy. Here is an illustration.
The Rev. H. Lansdell tells us in his book Through
Siberia that a Siberian friend of his had a convict
servant, whom he had sent away for drunkenness.
The man came back entreating that he might be rein-
stated, but his master said, "No, I have warned you
continually, and done everything I could to keep you
sober, but in vain." "Yes," said the man; "but then,
sir, you should have given me a good thrashing."
Many a servant girl has gone to the bad because at
some critical moment her mistress did not give her
a good tongue-thrashing.

It cannot spoil tried servants to ask their opinion and
advice on certain occasions, but we should not expect
them to think for us altogether. To do this makes
them as conceited as the Irish servant who replied to
his master when that inferior being suggested his views
as to the way some work should be done, " Well, sir,
you may know best, but I know better I " Still, it is
well to let servants know as often as we conveniently can
the reason of our commands. This gives them an
interest in their work, and proves to them that they
are not considered mere machines. Never let a mistress
be afraid of insisting upon that respect which her position
demands. In turn she can point out that every rank in
life has its own peculiar dignity, and that no one is
more worthy of respect than a good servant. We should
feel just as thankful to our servants for serving us, as
we expect them to be for the shelter and care of the
home which we offer them. There is a perfectly re-
ciprocal obligation, and the manner of the employer
must recognise it. "Whereas thy servant worketh
truly, entreat him not evil, nor the hireling that bestoweth

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 119

himself wholly for thee. Let thy soul love a good
servant, and defraud him not of liberty." We have
no right to every moment of a servant's time, and he
or she will work all the better for an occasional holiday.

Those who feel that they are responsible for the
character of their servants will endeavour to provide
them with innocent amusements. When papers and
books are read above stairs they might be sent down
to the kitchen. If this were done, literature of the
"penny dreadful" description would to a great extent
be excluded.

Many employers behave as if the laws of good manners
did not apply to their dealings with servants. Apparently
they consider that servants should not be allowed any
feelings. This was not the opinion of Chesterfield,
who observes : " I am more upon my guard as to my
behaviour to my servants, and to others who are called
my interiors, than I am towards my equals, for fear of
being suspected of that mean and ungenerous sentiment
of desiring to make others feel that difference which
fortune has, perhaps too undeservedly, made between
us.** It is difficult, perhaps, to strike the exact mean
between superciliousness and excessive familiarity, but
we must make every effort to arrive at it. There is
nothing more keenly appreciated by servants than
that evenness of temper which respects itself at the
same time that it respects others. A lady visited a
dying servant who had lived with her for thirty years.
" How do you find yourself to-day, Mary ? " said her
mistress, taking hold of the withered hand which was
held out. "Is that you, my darling mistress?" and
a beam of joy overspread the old woman's face. " Oh
yes!" she added, looking up, "it is you, my kind,
my mannerly mistress ! "

Part of Miss Harriet Martineau's ideal of happiness
was to have young servants whom she might train
and attach to herself. In later life, when settled in
a house of her own, she was in the habit of calling

i2o HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

her maids in the evening and pointing out to them
on the map the operations of the Crimean war, for
she thought that young English women should take
an intelligent interest in the doings of their country.
Mrs Carlyle was another tender mother-mistress to
her servants, though her letters have made the world
acquainted with the incessant contests which she was
obliged to wage with "mutinous maids of all work"
as Carlyle used to call them. "One of these maids
was untidy, useless in all ways, but 'abounding in
grace/ and in consequent censure of every one above
or below her, and of everything she couldn't under-
stand. After a long apostrophe one day, as she was
bringing in dinner, Carlyle ended with, 'And this
I can tell you, that if you don't carry the dishes
straight, so as not to spill the gravy, so far from
being tolerated in heaven, you won't be even tolerated
on earth.'" It was better to teach the poor creature,
even in this rough way than not at all, that she
ought to put her religion into the daily round and
common tasks of her business ; that

A servant with this clause

Makes drudgery divine ;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws

Makes that and the action fine.

So much of the comfort of home depends upon
servants that a wise mistress studies them and values
their co-operation.

She heedeth well their ways,
Upon her tongue the law of kindness dwells,
With wisdom she dispenses blame or praise,
And ready sympathy her bosom swells.

She sees that their meals are regularly served, and
that they are undisturbed during the time set apart for
them. She does not think that any hole will do for a
servant's bedroom. When caring for the children that

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 121

they may have their little entertainments and enjoyments
to brighten their lives, she includes the servants in the
circle of her sympathies ; and is always on the watch
to make them feel that they are an integral part of the
home, and that, if they have to work for it and to bear its
burden, they are not excluded from a real share in its
interests and joys. In a word, she feels for them and
with them, and as a rule they do their best for her.
That servants are not always ungrateful every good
mistress is well aware. Among the inscriptions to the
early Christian martyrs found in the catacombs at Rome,
there is one which proves that there were in those days,
as no doubt there are now, grateful servants. "Here
lies Gordianus, deputy of Gaul, who was murdered, with
all his family, for the faith. They rest in peace. His
handmaid, Theophila, set up this." Gentle, loving
Theophila ! There was no one left but thee to remember
poor Gordianus, and perhaps his little children whom
thou didst tend.

In managing servants a little judicious praise is a
a wonderful incentive. The Duke of Wellington once
requested the connoisseur whom the author of Tancred
terms " the finest judge in Europe," to provide him a
chef. Felix, whom the late Lord Seaford was reluctantly
about to part with on economical grounds, was recom-
mended and received. Some months afterwards his
patron was dining with Lord Seaford, and before the
first course was half over he observed, " So I find you
have got the duke's cook to dress your dinner." "I
have got Felix,'* replied Lord S., "but he is no longer
the duke's cook. The poor fellow came to me with
tears in his eyes, and begged me to take him back
again, at reduced wages or no wages at all, for he was
determined not to remain at Aspley House. * Has the
duke been finding fault?' said I. 'Oh no, my lord,
I would stay if he had; he is the kindest and most
liberal of masters ; but I serve him a dinner that would
make Ude or FrantateUi burst with envy, and he says

122 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

nothing; I go out and leave him to dine on a dinner
badly dressed by the cook-maid, and he says nothing.
Dat hurt my feelings, my 4ord.' "

On the vexed question of " visitors," mistresses might
say to their servants, " When we stay in a lady's house,
we cannot ask visitors without an invitation from our
hostess, and we wish you to observe the same courtesy
towards us. When we think it advisable, we will tell
you to invite your friends, but we reserve to ourselves
the right to issue the invitation; and if your friends
come to see you, we expect that you shall ask our
permission if you may receive them." A mistress who
does not forget the time when she used to meet her
affianced thus writes : " I always invite their confidence,
and if I find any servants of my household are respect-
ably engaged to be married, I allow the young men
to come occasionally to the house, and perhaps on
Christmas Day, or some festival of the kind, invite them
to dine in the kitchen, and I have never yet found my
trust misplaced. I should not like my own daughters
only to see their affianced husbands out of doors, and,
though the circumstances in the two cases differ materially,
as a woman I consider we ought to enter into the
feelings of those other women who are serving under
us."

Half the domestic difficulties arise from a want of
honesty among mistresses in the characters which they
give each other of the servants they discharge. Many
a servant receives flattering recommendation who does
not deserve any better than the following : " The bearer
has been in my house a year — minus eleven months.
During- this time she has shown herself diligent — at the
house door; frugal — in work; mindful — of herself;
prompt — in excuses ; friendly — towards men ; faithful
— to her lovers ; and honest — when everything had
vanished."

It is often advocated that training-schools should be
established for domestic servants, as a remedy to meet

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 123

the domestic servant difficulty. But improvement must
begin at the head. If we are to have training-schools
for domestic servants, the servants may very well say
that there ought to be a training-school for mistresses.
To rule well is even more difficult than to serve well.

The mistress, then, should learn how and when every-
thing ought to be done, so that in the first place she
can instruct, and, in the second, correct, if her orders
be not carried out. If she does any of the household
work herself, let it be to save keeping a servant, not to
help those she has. The more you do in the way of
help, the worse very often you are served. Let your
servants understand that you also have your duties,
and that your object in employing them is to enable
you to carry on your work in comfort. So much have
young women been spoiled by this system of auxiliary
labour, that one cook who came to be engaged asked
who was to fill her kitchen scuttle, as she would not do
it herself. Mistresses must unite in the interests of the
servants themselves, as much as in their own, to put
down this sort of thing, for the demands have become
so insolent, that, as a smart little maid once expressed
it, "They're all wanting places where the work is put
out."

134 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

CHAPTER XV.

PREPARATION FOR PARENTHOOD.

If a merchant commenced business without any
knowledge of arithmetic and book-keeping, we should
exclaim at his folly and look for disastrous conse-
quences. Or if, before studying anatomy, a man set
up as a surgical operator, we should wonder at his
audacity and pity his patients. But that parents should
begin the difficult task of rearing children without ever
having given a thought to the principles — physical, moral,
or intellectual — which ought to guide them, excites neither
surprise at the actors nor pity for their victims. —
HERBERT SPENCER.

WHETHER as bearing on the happiness of parents them-
selves, or as affecting the characters and lives of their
children, a knowledge of the right methods of juvenile
culture — physical, intellectual, and moral — is a know-
ledge of extreme importance. This topic should be the
final one in the course of instruction passed through
by each man and woman, but it is entirely neglected.

" If by some strange chance," says Mr. Herbert
Spencer, "not a vestige of us descended to the remote
future save a pile of our school-books or some college
examination-papers, we may imagine how puzzled an
antiquary of the period would be on finding in them
no sign that the learners were ever likely to be parents.
'This must have been the curriculum for their celi-
bates/ we may fancy him concluding : ' I perceive here
an elaborate preparation for many things, but I find no

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 125

reference whatever to the bringing up of children. They
could not have been so absurd as to omit all training
for this gravest of responsibilities. Evidently, then, this
was the school-course of one of their monastic orders.' "

Parents go into their office with zeal and good in-
tentions, but without any better knowledge than that
which is supplied by the chances of unreasoning custom,
impulse, fancy, joined with the suggestions of ignorant
nurses and the prejudiced counsel of grandmothers.
" Against stupidity the gods themselves are powerless ! "
We all understand that some kind of preparation is
necessary for the merchant, the soldier, the surgeon, or
even for making coats and boots; but for the great
responsibility of parenthood all preparation is ignored,
and people begin the difficult task of rearing children
without ever having given a thought to the principles
that ought to guide them.

How fatal are the results ! Who shall say how many
early deaths of children and enfeebled constitutions,
implying moral and intellectual weakness, are caused
by ignorance on the part of parents of the commonest
laws of life ? Every one can think of illustrations. Our
clothing is, in reference to the temperature of the body,
merely an equivalent for a certain amount of food, for
by diminishing the loss of heat, it diminishes the amount
of fuel needful for maintaining heat. Those parents
cannot be aware of this who give their children scanty
clothing in order to harden them, or who only allow
a dawdling walk beside a grown-up person instead of
the boisterous play which all young animals require and
which would produce warmth.

Fathers who pride themselves on taking prizes at
cattle-shows for their sheep and pigs are not at all
ashamed never to ascertain the best kind of food for
feeding children. They do not care if their children
are fed with monotonous food, though change of diet is
required for the preservation of health.

126 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

And then as to the intellects of children. Ignorance
puts books into their hands full of abstract matter in
those early years when the only lessons they are capable
of learning are those taught by concrete objects. Not
knowing that a child's restless observation and sense
of wonder are for a few years its best instructors, parents
endeavour to occupy its attention with dull abstractions.
It is no wonder that few grown-up people know anything1
about the beauties and wonders of nature. During those
years when the child should have been spelling out
nature's primer and pleasurably exercising his powers
of observation, grammar, languages, and other abstract
studies have occupied most of his attention. Having
been "presented with a universal blank of nature's
works," he learns to see everything through books, that
is, through other men's eyes, and the greater part of his
knowledge in after life consists of mere words.

We are aware that it will provoke laughter to hint that
for the proper bringing up of children a knowledge of
the elementary principles of physiology, psychology, and
ethics are indispensable. May we not, however, hold
up this ideal of Mr. Herbert Spencer to ourselves and
to others? "Here are," he says, "the indisputable
facts: that the development of children in mind and
body follows certain laws ; that unless these laws are in
some degree conformed to by parents, death is inevitable ;
that unless they are in a great degree conformed to,
there must result serious physical and mental defects,
and that only when they are completely conformed to
can a perfect maturity be reached. Judge, then, whether
all who may one day be parents should not strive with
some anxiety to learn what these laws are." "I was
not brought up, but dragged up," said the poor girl
in the tale ; and she touched unconsciously the root of
nine-tenths of the vice and misery of the world.

Great as is the importance of some information, if
children are to be properly reared, still knowledge is by

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 127

no means all that preparation for parenthood should
include. While Doctor Johnson was musing over the
fire one evening in Thrale's drawing-room, a young
gentleman suddenly, and, as Johnson seems to have
fancied, somewhat disrespectfully, called to him : " Mr.
Johnson, would you advise me to marry?" Johnson
(angrily): " Sir, I would advise no man to marry who
is not likely to propagate understanding."

Would the doctor have extended this restriction to
all men and women who are not likely to propagate good
bodies and souls? We know that there are people
whose misfortunes and vices will spoil and ruin, not
merely the lives of those they marry, but the lives of
their children too. The miserable inheritance of their
imperfections will be transmitted to coming generations.
If it were only possible to keep all these people single,
those who will be living thirty years hence would be
living in a very different world from this.

The only restriction public opinion now puts to any
marriage is that it should not be forbidden by the
"Table of Kindred an,d Affinity" contained in the
Prayer Book. When will all improvident marriages
be equally illegal? When will scrofula, madness,
drunkenness, or even bad temper and excessive selfish-
ness be considered as just causes and impediments why
parties should not be joined together in holy matrimony?
Only the best men and women of this generation— could
these be discovered — should become the parents of
the next.

It has been flippantly asked why we should consult
the interests of the next generation, since the next
generation has done nothing for us. The answer is
plain. We have no right to bequeath to it an heritage
of woe. Every man and woman can do much to make
themselves worthy of the honour and responsibility of
being a parent. Let them preserve their health, cultivate
their social affections, and, above all, abstain from those

128 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

sins which science and bitter experience assure us are
visited on children. It is only when they do this that
a new edition of themselves is called for.

Who is the. happy husband ? He
Who, scanning his unwedded life,

Thanks Heaven, with a conscience free,
'Twas faithful to his future wife.

And who are the happy parents ? Those who, scanning
their unwedded lives, thank Heaven they were faithful
to future children.

It is to be hoped that few men now are as careless
or as ignorant of consequences to children as was Mr.
Tulliver in George Eliot's Mill on the Floss, when
he picked his wife from her sisters * * o' purpose 'cause
she was a bit weak, like." We have come to see that,
in order to be good mothers, women must be very un-
like Mrs. Pullet in the same story, who was bent on
proving her gentility and wealth by the delicacy of her
health and the quantity of doctor's stuff she could afford
to imbibe.

But parents have not altogether given up sacrificing
their own health and the health of their children to the
Moloch of fashion. They have not quite ceased to
burn incense to vanity. We have still to complain,
as did Frances Kemble, that the race is ruined for the
sake of fashion. " I cannot believe that women were
intended to suffer as much as they do, and be as helpless
as they are, in child-bearing ; but rather that both are
the consequences of our many and various abuses of
our constitutions and infractions of God's natural laws.
Tight stays, tight garters, tight shoes, and similar con-
cessions to the vagaries of feminine fashion, are account-
able for many of the ills that afHict both mother and
child.1'

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 129

When King David was forbidden to build a temple
for God's service because he had shed blood abundantly,
with noble self-forgetfulness he laid up before his death
materials with which Solomon his son might have the
honour of building it. If parents would imitate his
example and lay up the materials of good character and
health, what glorious temples they might erect to God
in the bodies, minds, and souls of their children !

i3o HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

CHAPTER XVI.

" WHAT IS THE USE OF A CHILD ? "

A dreary place would be this earth

Were there no little people in it ;
The sottg of life would lose its mirth

Were there no children to begin it.

No babe within our arms to leap,

No little feet towards slumber tending ;

No little knee in prayer to bend,
Our lips the sweet words lending.

The sterner souls would grow more stern,
Unfeeling natures more inhuman,

And man to stoic coldness turn,

And woman would be less than woman.

Life's song, indeed, would lose its charm,

Were there no babies to begin it ;
A doleful place this world would be,

Were there no little people in it.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

WHEN Franklin made his discovery of the identity of
lightning and electricity, people asked, " Of what use is
it ? " The philosopher's retort was : " What is the use

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 131

of a child ? It may become a man ! " This question
— " What is the use of a child ? " is not likely to be
asked by our young married friends in reference to
the first miniature pledge who is about to crown
their wishes. They believe that one day he will become
" the guardian of the liberties of Europe, the bulwark
and honour of his aged parents." What a bond of
union ! What an incentive to tenderness ! That
husband has an unfeeling disposition who does not find
himself irresistibly drawn by the new and tender tie that
now exists.

I hope I appreciate the value of children. We should
soon come to nothing without them. What is a house
without a babv ? It may be comparatively quiet, but it
is very dull. 'A childless home misses its discipline and
loses its music?*

Children are not " certain sorrows and uncertain
pleasures" when properly managed. If some parents
taste the stream bitter it is very often they themselves
who have poisoned the fountain. They treated their
children when very young merely as playthings, humour-
ing every caprice, and sacrificing to present fancies
future welfare; then, when the charm of infancy had
passed, they commenced a system of restraint and
severity, and displayed displeasure and irritability at the
very defects of which they themselves laid the
foundation.

" In an evening spent with Emerson," says one who
knew him, " he made one remark which left a memor-
able impression on my mind. Two children of the
gentleman at whose house we met were playing in the
room, when their father remarked, ' Just the interesting
age.' 'And at what age,' asked Mr. Emerson, 'are
children not interesting ? ' " He regarded them with
the eye of a philosopher and a poet, and saw the
possibilities that surround their very being with infinite
interest. Each of his own children was for him a

132 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

harbinger of sunny hours, an angel sent from God with
tidings of hope.

Jeremy Taylor says, " No man can tell but he that
loves his children how many delicious accents make a
man's heart dance in the pretty conversation of those
dear pledges ; their childishness, their stammering, their
little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their
necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and
comfort to him that delights in their persons and
society." And what shall be said of the man who does
not love his children ? That he, far more than the
unmusical man-
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted.

"Civic virtues, unless they have their origin and
consecration in private and domestic virtues, are but
the virtues of the theatre. He who has not a loving
heart for his child, cannot pretend to have any true love
for humanity/'

" I do not wonder," said Dr. Arnold, " that it was
thought a great misfortune to die childless in old
times, when they had not fuller light — it seems so
completely wiping a man out of existence." " Write
ye this man child-less." Cuvier's four children died
before him. In his sixty-seventh year we find Moore
writing, "The last of our five children is now gone,
and we are left desolate and alone. Not a single
relative have I left now in the world." How Hallam
was successively bereaved of sons so rich in promise
is well known. There is a touching gravestone
in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey with the
inscription, "Jane Lister, deare child, died Oct. 7,1688."
These parents knew only too well the value of a child.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 133

A merchant in the city was accustomed to demand
an excuse from his clerks whenever they arrived late.
The 'excuse given, he invariably added, "Very well;
but don't let it happen again." One morning a
married clerk, being behind time, was promptly
interrogated as to the cause. Slightly embarrassed,
he replied, " The truth is, sir, I had an addition to my
family this morning, and it was not convenient to be
here sooner." "Very well," said the merchant, in his
j quick, nervous manner, u very well ; but don't let it
happen again."

There are people who think one, or, at most, two
children very well, but they don't wish it to happen again
and again. So frequently do additions happen at Salt
Lake City that nine families can, it is said, fill the
theatre. One must love children very much to see the
use of possessing the ninth part of a theatreful. (And
yet a family that is too small is almost as great an evil
as one that is too large)) It may be called a "large
little family." Often ah only child gives as much
trouble as a large family. Dr. Smiles tells us that a lady
who, with her husband, had inspected most of the lunatic
asylums of England and the Continent, found the
most numerous class of patients was almost always
composed of those who had been only children, and
whose wills had therefore rarely been thwarted or
disciplined in early life.

What constitutes a large family? Upon this
point there is much difference of opinion. A poor
woman was complaining one day that she did not
receive her proper share of charitable doles. Her
neighbour Mrs. Hawke, in the next court, came in
for everything and "got more than ever she was
entitled to ; for Mrs. Hawke had no family not to speak
of; only nine." "Only nine! how many then have
you?" was the natural rejoinder. "Fourteen living,"
she replied. But even fourteen is not such a very

134 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

large number when one is used to it. Some one is
said to have begun a story of some trifling adventure
which had befallen him with the words, "As I was
crossing Oxford Street the other day with fourteen of my
daughters " — Laughter followed, and the narrator never
got beyond those introductory words. We do not
believe this anecdote, but if it were true, was there not
something heroic in the contented, matter-of-fact way
in which the man spoke of his belongings ? " Fourteen
of my daughters ! " An unsympathising spectator
might have said that any one with such a following
ought to have been crossing not Oxford Street, but the
Atlantic.

A nursery-maid was leading a little child up and
down a garden. " Is't a laddie or a lassie ? " asked the
gardener. "A laddie," said the maid. "Weel,"
said he, "I'm glad o' that, for there's ower mony
women in the world." " Heck, man," was the reply,
" did ye no ken there's aye maist sown o* the best crap ? "
This rejoinder was more ready than correct, for as a
matter of fact more boys are born than girls. It is
natural for parents to desire offspring of both sexes.
Both are required to complete a family. Being
brought up together the boys acquire something of
their sisters' delicacy and tact, while the girls learn
something of their brothers' self-reliance and
independence.

"Desire not a multitude of unprofitable children,
neither delight in ungodly sons. Though they multiply,
rejoice not in them, except the fear of the Lord be with
them. Trust not thou in their life, neither respect their
multitude : for one that is just is better than a
thousand ; and better it is to die, without children, than
to have them that are ungodly." fin reference to children,
quality is far more to be desired than quantity.
Without accepting pessimism, we may deny that the
mere propagation of the human race is an object which

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 135

presents itself as in itself a good. The chief end of
man is not simply to have "the hope and the
misfortune of being," but to glorify God and to serve
humanity. What is the use of a child who is likely to
do neither ?

If it be the will of God to withhold offspring from
a young couple, nothing should be said either by the
husband or wife that could give the other pain on
the subject. To do so is more than reprehensible ;
it is odious and contemptible. How unlike Elkanah,
when, with sentiments at once manly and tender,
he thus addresses his weeping wife — " Hannah, why
weepest thou ? and why eatest thou not ? and why is
thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten
sons?"

We, ignorant of ourselves,

Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
Deny us for our good ; so find we profit
By losing of our prayers.

Writing on this subject a lady tells us that she
had a relation who was married some years without
having a child. Her feelings partook not only of grief,
but of anguish : at length a lovely boy was granted
her. " Spare, O God, the life of my blessing? was her
constant prayer. Her blessing was spared : he grew to
the years of manhood; squandered a fine fortune;
married a servant-maid; and broke his mother'*
heart !

Another intimate friend of the author's was incon-
solable for not having children. At length, the prospect
of her becoming a mother was certain, and her joy was
extreme. The moment of trial arrived : for four days
and nights her sufferings and torture were not to be
allayed by medical skill or human aid. At length her

136 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

cries ceased; and, at the same moment that she gave
birth to two children, she herself had become a corpse.
"Give me children," said the impatient and weeping
Rachel, "or else I die" (Gen. xxx. i). Her prayer
was heard, and in giving birth to her boy the mother
expired.

Another impassioned mother, as she bent over the
bed of her sick infant, called out, " Oh, no ; I cannot
resign him. It is impossible; I cannot resign him."
A person present, struck with her words, noted them
down in a daily journal which he kept. The boy
recovered ; and that day one-and-twenty years he was
hanged as a murderer !

How terrible it is when a much-desired child is born
to a comparatively useless existence by reason of some
deficiency or deformity. Very touching is the story of
a lady who, though deaf and dumb, became the wife of
an earl through her beauty. In due course the king
o' the world, the baby, presented himself — a fine child,
of course, and a future earl. Soon after its birth, as the
nurse sat watching the babe, she saw the countess
mother approach the cradle with a huge china vase, lift
it above the head of the sleeping child, and poise
it to dash it down. Petrified with horror, wondering
at the strange look of the mother's face, the nurse sat
powerless and still ; she dared not even cry out ; she
was not near enough to throw herself between the victim
and the blow. The heavy mass was thrown down with
a tremendous force and crash on the floor beside the
cradle, and the babe awoke terrified and screaming,
clung to his delighted mother, who had made the
experiment to discover whether her child had the
precious gift of voice and hearing, or was like herself, a
mute.

In his Bachelors Complaint of the Behaviour of
Married People, Charles Lamb speaks of "the airs
which these creatures give themselves when they come,

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 137

as they generally do, to have children. When I consider
how little of a rarity children are — that every street and
blind alley swarms with them — that the poorest people
commonly have them in most abundance — that there are
few marriages that are not blest with at least one of
these bargains — how often they turn out ill and defeat
the fond hopes of their parents, taking to vicious courses,
which end in poverty, disgrace, the gallows, etc.—
I cannot for my life tell what cause for pride there can
possibly be in having them. If they were young
phoenixes, indeed, that were born but one in a hundred
years, there might be a pretext. But when they are so
common "

It is, however, far better for married people to take
pride in their children than to be as indifferent to them
as was a certain old lady who had brought up a family
of children near a river. A gentleman once said to her,
" I should think you would have lived in constant fear
that some of them would have got drowned." " Oh, no,"
responded the old lady, " we only lost three or four in
that way."

What is the use of a child ? Not very much unless
its parents accept it, not as a plaything, much less as
a nuisance, but as a most sacred trust — a talent to be
put to the best account} It Is^neltKeFlo be spoiled nor
buried in the earth — how many careless mothers do this
literally ! — but to be made the most of for God and for
man. Perhaps there was only One who perfectly
understood the use of a child. " Suffer the little
children to come unto Me, and forbid them not : for of
such is the kingdom of God." In some lines to a child
Longfellow has well answered the question we have been
considering.

Enough ! I will not play the Seer;
I will no longer strive to ope
The mystic volume, where appear

138 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

The herald Hope, forerunning1 Fear,
And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope.
Thy destiny remains untold.

In the next chapter we shall point out how useful
children are in educating their parents.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED, 139

CHAPTER XVII.

THE EDUCATION OF PARENTS.

O dearest, dearest boy 1 my heart
For better lore would seldom yearn,

Could I but teach the hundredth part
Of what from thee I learn.

WORDSWORTH.

How admirable is the arrangement through which
human beings are led by their strongest affections to
subject themselves to a discipline they would else elude.
—HERBERT SPENCER.

" MY friend," said an old Quaker, to a lady who con-
templated adopting a child, " I know not. how far thou
wilt succeed in educating her, but I am quite certain she
will educate you." How encouraging and strengthening
it should be for parents to reflect that, in training up their
children in the way they should go, they are at the same
time training up themselves in the way they should go ;
that along with the education of their children their own
higher education cannot but be carried on. In Silas
Marner^ George Eliot has shown how by means of
a little child a human soul may be redeemed from cold,
petrifying isolation ; how all its feelings may be freshened,
rejuvenated, and made to flutter with new hope and
activity.

140 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

Very simple is the pathos of this matchless work of
art Nothing but the story of a faithless love and a
false friend and a loss of trust in all things human or
Divine. Nothing but the story of a lone, bewildered
weaver, shut out from his kind, concentrating every
baulked passion into one — the all-engrossing passion for
gold. And then the sudden disappearance of the hoard
from its accustomed hiding-place, and in its stead the
startling apparition of a golden-haired little child found
one snowy winter's night sleeping on the floor in front of
the glimmering hearth. And the gradual reawakening
of love in the heart of the solitary man, a love " drawing
his hope and joy continually onward beyond the money,"
and once more bringing him into sympathetic relations
with his fellow-men. " In old days," says the story,
"there were angels who came and took men by the
hand and led them away from the city of destruction.
We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are
led away from threatening destruction; a hand is put
into theirs /which leads them forth gently towards a calm
and bright land, so that they look no more backward,
and the hand may be a little child's."

Children renew the youth of their parents and enable
them to mount up with wings as eagles, instead of
becoming chained to the rock of selfishness. We do
not believe that " all children are born good," for it is
the experience of every one that the evil tendencies
of fathers are visited upon their children unto the third
and fourth generation. Nevertheless all men are
exhorted by the highest authority to follow their
innocency, which is great indeed as compared to our
condition who —

Through life's drear road, so dim and dirty,
Have dragged on to three-and-thirty.

"Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 141

little child, he shall not enter therein." Evil tendencies
are checked and good ones are educated or drawn out
by children, for they call to remembrance—

Those early days, when I

Shined in my angel-infancy,

Before I taught my tongue to wound

My conscience with a sinful sound,

Or had the black art to dispense

A several sin to every sense,

But felt through all this fleshly dress

Bright shoots of everlastingness.

When daily farther from the east — from God who is
our home — we have travelled, children are sent to recall
us or at least to make us long " to travel back, and
tread again that ancient track."

Whatever we attempt to teach children we must first
practise ourselves. Whatever a parent wishes his child
to avoid he must make up his mind to renounce, and,
on the other hand, if we leave off any good habit, we
need not expect our children to continue it Only the
other day I heard a boy of five say to his father, " You
must not be cross, for if you are, I shall be that when
I grow up." " Mother," said a small urchin, who had
just been saying his prayers at her knees ; " Mother,
when may I leave off my prayers?" "Oh, Tommy,
what a notion ! What do you mean ? " " Well, mother,
father never says his prayers, and I thought I was old
enough to leave them off."

In young children the capacity for mimicry is very
strong. They imitate whatever they see done by their
elders. How wrong, then, is it for people to say or
do before even a very young child what they would not
say or do before an adult, supposed to be more ob-
servant ! We must not say, " Oh, there's no one present

i4» HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED!

but the child," for "the child" is reading, marking,
and inwardly digesting character as it is exhibited in
words, looks, and deeds. For the sake, then, of their
children, if not for their own sakes, parents should seek
to be very self-restrained, truthful, and, above all things,
just. Right habits are imparted to children almost as
easily as wrong ones.

The education of parents begins from the day their
first child is born. A young man and woman may be
selfish and egotistical enough until the " baby " conies
as a teacher of practical Christianity into their home.
Now they have to think of somebody beside them-
selves, to give up not a few of their comforts and
individual "ways," for the one important thing in the
house is King "Baby." If they really love their
children, parents will become truthful in act as well
as in word, knowing that truthful habits must be learned
in childhood or not at all. They will be so just that
" You're not fair " will never be rightly charged against
them. And, as regards sympathy, they will try to be
the friends and companions in sorrow and in joy as
well as the parents of their children.

Nor is it only the moral nature that is developed in
the school of parenthood. Even to attempt to answer
the wise questions of children is a task difficult enough
to afford healthy exercise to the greatest mind. When
a child begins to cross-examine its parents as to why
the fire burns, how his carte-de-visite was taken, how
many stars there are, why people suffer, why God does
not kill the devil — grown-up ignorance or want of
sympathy too often laughs at him, says that children
should not ask tiresome questions, and not only checks
the inquiring spirit within him, but misses the intellectual
improvement that would have come from endeavouring
to answer his questions.

"Little people should be seen and not heard" is a
stupid saying, which makes young observers shy of

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 143

imparting to their elders the things that arrest their
attention. Children would gladly learn and gladly
teich, but if they are frequently snubbed they will do
ndther. Men such as Professor Robinson of Edinburgh,
the first editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica, have
not been above receiving intellectual improvement and
pleasure from a little child. " I am delighted," he wrote
in reference to his grandchild, " with observing the
growth of its little soul, and particularly with its number-
less instincts, which formerly passed unheeded. I thank
the French theorists for more forcibly directing my
attention to the finger of God, which I discern in every
awkward movement and every wayward whim. They
are all guardians of his life and growth and power.
I regret indeed that I have not time to make infancy
and the development of its powers my sole study."

Some parents seem to imagine that they sufficiently
perform their duty when they give their children a .good
education. They forget that there is the education of
the fireside as well as of the school.) At schools and
academies there is no cultivation of the affectipjas, but
often very much of the reverse. Hence Tfie value to
the young of kindly home influences that touch the
heart and understanding.

Among the poems of George Macdonald are the
following pretty and playful lines called simply "The
Baby":—

Where did you come from, baby dear ?

Out of the everywhere into hear.

Where did you get your eyes so blue ?

Out of the skies as I came through.

What makes your forehead smooth and high ?

A soft hand stroked it as I went by.

What makes your cheek like a warm white rose ?

I saw something better than any one knows*

144 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIEP.

Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss ?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.
Where did you get that coral ear ?
God spoke, and it came out to hear.
Where did you get those arms and hands ?
Love made itself into bonds and bands.
Whence came your feet, dear little things?
From the same box as the cherubs' wings.
How did they all first come to be you ?
God thought about me and so I grew.
But how did you come to us, you dear?
God thought about you, and so I am here.

Yes, God is thinking about our highest interests
when he sends children to us. They are sent as little
missionaries to turn us from evil and to develop within
us the Divine image. When we see sin stirring in our
children, no stroke seems too heavy to crush the noxious
passion before it grows to fell dimensions and laughs
to scorn the sternest chastisement Heaven is saying
to us, "Physician, heal thyself; strike hard, strike
home ; purge thine own heart of the evil. Lest your
children should suffer, restrain your temper, curb your
passions, master your unholy desires."

This, then, is one of the most important reasons why
God " setteth the solitary in families." He desires not
only that they should train up children in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord, but also that they may by
doing so be brought to Him themselves. When the
day of account comes, after life's brief stormy passage
is over, He wishes them to be able to say, " Here am
I, for I have been educated by the children whom Thou
hast given me."

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 145

CHAPTER XVIIL

WANTED ! — MOTHERS.

There are comparatively very few women not replete
with maternal love ; and, by the bye, take you care if
you meet with a girl who "is not fond of children" not
to marry her by any means. Some few there are who
even make a boast that they "cannot bear children, " that
is, cannot endure them. I never knew a man that was
good for much who had a dislike to little children ; and
I never knew a woman of that taste who was good for
anything at all. I have seen a few such in the course
of my life, and I have never wished to see one of them
a second time. — COBBETT'S Advice to Young- Men.

NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE was accustomed to say that
"the future good or bad conduct of a child depended
entirely on the mother." In the course of a conversa- '
tion with Madame Campan he remarked : " The old
systems of instruction seem to be worth nothing ; what
is yet wanting in order that the people should be
properly educated?" " Mothers," replied Madame
Campan. The reply struck the emperor. " Yes ! "
said he, "here is a system of education in one word.
Be it your care, then, to train up mothers who shall
know how to educate their children."

"She who rocks the cradle rules the world," for she

i46 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIBD.

it is who guides and trains the opening minds of those
who shall influence the coming generation. In its
earliest years, the mother's every look, tone of voice,
and action, sink into the heart and memory of her
child, and are presently reproduced in its own life.
From this point, of view the throne of motherhood
ought, as Madame Laetitia Buonaparte believed, to
take precedence of that of kings. When her son, on
becoming an emperor, half playfully, half gravely
offered her his hand to kiss, she flung it back to him
indignantly, saying, in the presence of his courtiers,
(*It is your duty to kiss the hand of her who gave
you life."

No wonder that a good mother has been called
nature's chef d'ceuvre, for she is not only the perfection
of womanhood, but the most beautiful and valuable of
nature's productions. To her the world is indebted for
the work done by most of its great and gifted men.
As letters cut in the bark of a young tree grow and
widen with age, so do the ideas which a mother implants
in the mind of her talented child. Thus Scott is said
to have received his first bent towards ballad literature
from his mother's and grandmother's recitations in his
hearing long before he himself had learned to read.
Goethe owed the bias of his mind and character to his
mother, who possessed in a high degree the art of
stimulating young and active minds, instructing them
in the science of life out of the treasures of her abundant
experience. After a lengthened interview with her a
traveller said, " Now do I understand how Goethe has
become the man he is." Goethe himself affectionately
cherished her memory. "She was worthy of life!1'
he once said of her; and when he visited Frankfort,
he sought out every individual who had been kind to
his mother, and thanked them. The poet Gray was
equally grateful to his mother. On the memorial which
he erected over her remains he described her as "1'

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 147

careful, tender mother of many children, one of whom
alone had the misfortune to survive her." In a corner
of his room there was a trunk containing the carefully
folded dresses of his dead mother, whom he never
mentioned without a sigh.

When a mother once asked a clergyman when she
should begin the education of her child, then four
years old, he replied : " Madam, if you have not begun
already, you have lost those four years. From the first
smile that gleams upon an infant's cheek, your oppor-
tunity begins." Cowper's mother must have well used
this opportunity, considering the impression her brief
companionship made upon the poet. She died when
he was six years old, and yet in after-life he could say
that not a week passed in which he did not think of
her. When his cousin one day presented him with
a portrait of his mother he said : " I had rather possess
that picture than the richest jewel in the British crown ;
for I loved her with an affection that her death,
fifty-two years since, has not in the least abated."
Surely it is better for a mother to merit such love than
to leave the care of her children almost entirely to
servants because all her time is occupied "serving
divers lusts and pleasures."

" Give your child to be educated by a slave," said
an ancient Greek, " and instead of one slave, you will
then have two." On the other hand, "happy is he
whom his mother teacheth." One good mother is worth
a hundred nurses or teachers. If from any cause,
whether from necessity, or from indolence, or from
desire for company, children are deprived of a mother's
care, instruction, and influence, it is an incalculable
loss,

Curran spoke with great affection of his mother, as
a woman of Strong original understaiiding, to whose
wise counsel, consistent piety, and lessons of honourable
ambition, which she diligently enforced on the minds

148 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

of her children, he himself principally attributed his
Success in life. "The only inheritance," he used to i
say, "that I could boast of from my poor father, was
the very scanty one of an unattractive face and person,
like his own; and if the world has ever attributed to^
me something more valuable than face or person, or
than earthly wealth, it was because another and a dearer
parent gave her child a portion from the treasure of her
mind."

Mrs. Wesley, the mother of John Wesley, made it a
rule to converse alone with one of her little ones every
evening, listening to their childish confessions, and
giving counsel in their childish perplexities. She was
the patient teacher as well as the cheerful companion
of her children. When some one said to her, " Why
do you tell that blockhead the same thing twenty times
over?" she replied, "Because if I had told him only
nineteen times I should have lost all my labour." So
deep was the hold this mother had on the hearts of her
sons, that in his early manhood she had tenderly to
rebuke John for that " fond wish of his, to die before
she died." It was through the bias given by her to
her sons' minds in religious matters that they acquired
the tendency which, even in early years, drew to them
the name of Methodists. In a letter to her son Samuel,
when a scholar at Westminster, she said : " I would
advise you as much as possible to throw your business
into a certain method, by which means you will learn
to improve every precious moment, and find an unspeak-
able facility in the performance of your respective duties."
This " method " she went on to describe, exhorting her
son " in all things to act upon principle ; " and the
society which the brothers John and Charles afterwards
founded at Oxford is supposed to have been in a greal
measure the result of her exhortations.

The example of such mothers as Lord Byron's serve;
for a warning, for it shows that the influence of a bac

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 149

mother is quite as hurtful as that of a good one is
beneficial. She is said to have died in a fit of passion,
brought on by reading her upholsterer's bills. She even
taunted her son with his personal deformity ; and it was
no unfrequent occurrence, in the violent quarrels which
occurred between them, for her to take up the poker or
tongs, and hurl them after him as he fled from her
presence. It was this unnatural treatment that gave
a morbid turn to Byron's after life; and, careworn,
unhappy, great, and yet weak as he was, he carried
about with him the mother's poison which he had
sucked in his infancy. Hence he exclaims, in Childe
Harold—

Yet must I think less wildly : — I have thought
Too long and darkly, till my brain became,
In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought,
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame :
And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame,
My springs of life 'were poisoned.

In like manner, though in a different way, the char-
acter of Mrs. Foote, the actor's mother, was curiously
repeated in the life of her joyous, jovial-hearted son.
Though she had been heiress to a large fortune, she soon
spent it all, and was at length imprisoned for debt. In
this condition she wrote to Sam, who had been allowing
her a hundred a year out of the proceeds of his acting :
" Dear Sam, I am in prison for debt ; come and assist
your loving mother, E. Foote." To which her son
characteristically replied — " Dear mother, so am I ;
which prevents his duty being paid to his loving mother
by her affectionate son, Sam Foote."

Mothers ought not to deceive themselves so far as to
think that when they over-indulge their children they
are exhibiting genuine mothers' love. In reality they
are merely shifting their method of- self-pleasing. We

150 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

believe the love of God to be the supreme love ; but
have we ever reflected that in that awful love of God
for His poor children of clay there must be mingled
at once infinite tenderness and pity, and at the same
time a severity which never shrinks from any suffering
needed to recall us from sin ? This is the ideal of all
love towards which we should strive to lift our poor,
feeble, short-sighted, selfish affections; and which it
above all concerns a parent to strive to translate into
the language of human duty. This is the truest love,
the love which attaches itself to the very soul of the
child, which repents with it, with tears bitterer than
its own, for its faults, and, while heaping on it so far
as may be every innocent pleasure, never for an
instant abandons the thought of its highest and ultimate
welfare.

The loving instruction of a mother may seem to havei
been thrown away, but it will appear after many days.
"When I was a little child," said a good old man,
"my mother used to bid me kneel down beside her,
and place her hand upon my head while she prayed
Ere I was old enough to know her worth she died
and I was left too much to my own guidance. Like
others, I was inclined to evil passions, but often fel
myself checked and, as it were, drawn back by a sof
hand upon my head. When a young man I travellec
in foreign lands, and was exposed to many temptations
but, when I would have yielded, that same hand was
upon my head, and I was saved. I seemed to fee
its pressure as in the happy days of infancy ; anc
sometimes there came with it a voice in my heart
a voice that was obeyed : ' Oh ! do not this wicked-
ness, my son, nor sin against God.' "

With children you must mix gentleness with firmness.
" A man who is learning to play on a trumpet and a
petted child are two very disagreeable companions.'
If a mother never has headaches through rebuking hex

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 151

little children, she shall have plenty of heartaches when
they grow up. At the same time, a mother should not
hamper her child with unnecessary foolish restrictions.
It is a great mistake to fancy that your boy is made
of glass, and to be always telling him not to do this
and not to do that for fear of his breaking himself.
On the principle never to give pain unless it is to
prevent a greater pain, you should grant every request
which is at all reasonable, and let him see that your
denial of a thing is for his own good, and not simply
to save trouble; but once having settled a thing, hold
to it. Unless a child learns from the first that his
mother's yea is yea, and her nay nay, it will get into
the habit of whining and endeavouring to coax her
out of her refusal, and her authority will soon be
gone.

Unselfish mothers must be careful not to make their
children selfish. The mother who is continually giving
up her own time, money, strength, and pleasure for
the gratification of her children teaches them to expect
it always. They learn to be importunate in their
demands and to expect more and more. If the mother
wears an old dress that her idle son may have a new
coat, if she works that he may play, she is helping to
make him vain, selfish, and good-for-nothing. The
wise mother will insist upon being the head of her
household, and with quiet unobtrusive dignity she
will hold that place. She should never become the
subject of her own children. Even in such mere
external matters as dress and furniture her life should
be better equipped. The crown should be on her
head, not on theirs. Thus from babyhood they should
be habituated to look up to, not down on, their
mother. She should find time, or make it, to care
for her own culture; to keep her intellectual and her
art nature alive. The children may advance beyond
her knowledge; let her look to it that they do not

152 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

advance beyond her intellectual sympathies. Woe
to both her and them if she does not keep them well
in sight !

Happiness is the natural condition of every normal
child, and if the small boy or girl has a peculiar facility „
for any one thing, it is for self-entertainment. One of
the greatest defects in our modern method of treating
children is to overload them with costly and elaborate
toys, by which we cramp their native ingenuity or
perhaps force their tastes into the wrong channel. The
children of the humbler and the unpampered classes
are far happier than are those children whose created
wants are legion and require a fortune for their
satisfaction.

Some mothers believe that they are exhibiting the
proper " maternal feelings " in keeping their children
at home, when they should send them forth into the
world, where alone they can be taught the virtue of,
self-dependence. A time will come when the active
young man who is checked by foolish fondness will
exclaim with bitterness :

" Prison 'd and kept, and coax'd and whistled to —
Since the good mother holds me still a child,
Good mother is bad mother unto me !
A worse were better ! "

Far more truly loving is the mother who sends her
son into the battle of life preferring anything for him
rather than a soft, indolent, useless existence. Such
a mother is like those Spartan mothers who used to
say to their sons as they handed to them their shields,
" With it or upon it, my son ! " Better death than
dishonour was also the feeling of the mother of the
successful missionary William Knibb. Her parting
words to him were, " William, William ! mind, William,
I had rather hear that you had perished at sea, than

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. *53

that you had dishonoured the Society you go to
serve/*

Never promise a child and then fail to perform,
whether you promise him a bun or a beating, for if
once you lose your child's confidence you will find it
all but impossible to regain it. Happy is the mother
who can say, " I never told my child a lie, nor ever
deceived him, even for what seemed his good." Robert
Hall once reproved a young mother because, in putting
a little baby to bed, she put on her own nightcap,
and lay down by it till it went to sleep. "Madam,"
said the eloquent preacher, "you are acting a lie,
and teaching the child to lie." It was in vain that
the mother pleaded that the child would not go to
sleep. "That," said Hall, "is nonsense. Properly
brought up it must sleep. Make it know what you
want; obedience is necessary on its part, but not a
lie on yours."

154 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

CHAPTER XIX.

"NURSING FATHERS."

And kings shall be thy nursing fathers. — Isaiah^
xlix. 23.

IT is an old saying, "Praise the child and you make
love to the mother;" and it is a thing that no husband
ought to overlook, for if the wife wish her child to be
admired by others, what must be the ardour of her
wishes with regard to his admiration ! Cobbett tells
us that there was a drunken man in his regiment, who
used to say that his wife would forgive him for spending
all the pay, and the washing money into the bargain,
"if he would but kiss her ugly brat, and say it was
pretty." Though this was a profligate he had philo-
sophy in him; and certain it is that there is nothing
worthy of the name of conjugal happiness unless the
husband clearly evince that he is fond of his children.

Where you find children loving and helpful to their
mothers, you generally find their father at the bottom
of it. If the husband respect his wife, the childrer
will respect their mother. If the husband rises to offer
her a chair, they will not sit still when she enters the
room ; if he helps to bear her burdens, they will no
let her be the pack-horse of the household. If to he
husband the wife is but an upper servant, to he:
children she will easily become but a waiting-maid

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 155

The first care of the true, wise husband will be to
sustain the authority of the wife and mother. It must
a very remarkable exigency which allows him to
sit as a court of appeal from her decisions, and reverse
them. But although husbands ought not to vexatiously
nterfere with their wives in the management ot
children, especially of young children, still they must
not shirk their share of care and responsibility. It
was not without reason that Diogenes struck the father
when the son swore, because he had taught him no
setter.

There is no effeminacy in the title "nursing fathers,"
:>ut the contrary. Fondness for children arises from
compassionate feeling for creatures that are helpless
and innocent.

Napoleon loved the man who held with a steel hand,
covered with a silk glove; so should the father be
gentle but firm. Happy is he who is happy in his
children, and happy are the children who are happy
n their father. All fathers are not wise. Some are
like Eli, and spoil their children. Not to cross our
children is the way to make a cross of them. But,
"Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath."
That is, do not irritate them by unwise or capricious
rules and ways. Help your wives to make the home
lively and pleasant, so as to keep the children from
seeking pleasure and excitement elsewhere. The pro-
verb says that *c Clergymen's sons always turn out
badly." Why? Because the children are surfeited
with severe religion, not with the true religion of
Christ, who was Himself reproved by the prototypes
of such severe men.

"Where," asks Mr. James Payn, "is the children's
fun? Boys are now crammed with knowledge like
turkeys (but unfortunately not killed at Christmas),
and there is absolutely no room in them for a joke."
An idol called "success" is put up for worship, and

156 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED,

fathers are ready to sacrifice the health and happiness
of their children upon its altar. " The educational
abomination of desolation of the present day," says
Professor Huxley, "is the stimulation of young people
to work at high pressure by incessant examinations."
Some wise man (who probably was not an early riser)
has said of early risers in general, that they are * ' con-
ceited all the forenoon, and stupid all the afternoon."
Now whether this is true of early risers in the common
acceptation of the word or not, I will not pretend to
say; but it is too often true of the unhappy children
who are forced to rise too early in their classes. They j
are "conceited all the forenoon of life, and stupid all
its afternoon.'* How much unhappiness might children
be spared if fathers would goad them less, and some-
times cheer up that dulness which has fallen to most
of us, by saying :

Be good, dear child, and let who will be clever ;
Do noble things — nor dream them all day long;
And so make life, death , and that vast for ever
One grand, sweet song.

What to do with our boys and girls is certainly a
serious question, but the last thing we should do with
them is to make them miserable. Why not disregard
all false notions of gentility, and have each child well
taught a manual trade ? Then they will have riches in
their arms, and you will have escaped the unpleasant
alternative of the Jewish proverb, which says that he
who does not teach his son a trade teaches him to steal.

We give here a sketch of Canon Kingsley as a father,
because we do not remember any home life more
beautiful and instructive. Because the Rectory-house
was on low ground, the Rector of Eversley, who considered
violation of the divine laws of health a sort of acted
blasphemy, built his children an out-door nursery on the

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 157

" Mount," where they kept books, toys, and tea-things,
spending long, happy days on the highest and loveliest
point of moorland in the glebe ; and there he would join
them when his parish work was done, bringing them
some fresh treasure picked up in his walk, a choice wild
flower or fern, or rare beetle, sometimes a lizard or a
field-mouse; ever waking up their sense of wonder,
calling out their powers of observation, and teaching them
lessons out of God's great green book, without their
knowing they were learning. Out of doors and indoors,
the Sundays were the happiest days of the week to
the children, though to their father the hardest. When
his day's work was done, there was always the Sunday
walk, in which each bird and plant and brook was
pointed out to the children, as preaching sermons to
Eyes, such as were not even dreamt of by people of the
No-eyes species. Indoors the Sunday picture-books
were brought out, and each child chose its subject for
the father to draw, either some Bible story, or bird or
beast or flower. In all ways he fostered in his children
a love of animals. They were taught to handle without
disgust toads, frogs, beetles, as works from the hand of
a living God. His guests were surprised one morning
at breakfast when his little girl ran up to the open
window of the dining-room, holding a long, repulsive-
looking worm in her hand : " Oh, daddy, look at this
delightful worm ! "

Kingsley had a horror of corporal punishment, not
merely because it tends to produce antagonism between
parent and child, but because he considered more than
half the lying of children to be the result of fear of
punishment. " Do not train a child," he said, " as men
train a horse, by letting anger and punishment be the
first announcement of his having sinned. If you do,
you induce two bad habits : first, the boy regards his
parent with a kind of blind dread, as a being who may
be offended by actions which to him are innocent, and

158 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

whose wrath he expects to fall upon him at any moment
in his most pure and unselfish happiness. Next, and
worse still, the boy learns not to fear sin, but the punish-
ment of it, and thus he learns to lie." He was careful
too not to confuse his children by a multiplicity of small
rules. " It is difficult enough to keep the Ten Command-
ments," he would say, " without making an eleventh in
every direction." He had no " moods " with his family,
for he cultivated by strict self-discipline in the midst
of worries and pressing business, a disengaged temper,
that always enabled him to enter into other people's
interests, and especially into children's playfulness.
" I wonder," he would say, " if there is so much
laughing in any other home in England as in ours."
He became a light-hearted boy in the presence of his
children. When nursery griefs and broken toys were
taken to his study, he was never too busy to mend the
toy and dry the tears. He held with Jean Paul Richter,
that children have their "days and hours of rain,"
which parents should not take much notice of, either
for anxiety or sermons, but should lightly pass over,
except when they are symptoms of coming illness.
And his knowledge of physiology enabled him to
detect such symptoms. He recognised the fact that
weariness at lessons and sudden fits of obstinacy are not
hastily to be treated as moral delinquencies, springing
as they so often do from physical causes, which are best
counteracted by cessation from work and change of
scene.

How blessed is the son who can speak of his father
as Charles Kingsley's eldest son does ! " ' Perfect love
casteth out fear ' was the motto," he says, " on which
my father based his theory of bringing up children.
From this and from the interest he took in their
pursuits, their pleasures, trials, and even the petty
details of their everyday life, there sprang up a friend-
ship between father and children, that increased in

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 159

intensity and depth with years. To speak for myself,
he was the best friend — the only true friend I ever had.
At once he was the most fatherly and the most unfatherly
of fathers — fatherly in that he was our intimate friend
and our self-constituted adviser ; unfatherly in that our
feeling for him lacked that fear and restraint that make
boys call their father 'the governor/ Ours was the
only household I ever saw in which there was no
favouritism. It seemed as if in each of our different
characters he took an equal pride, while he fully
recognised their different traits of good or evil ; for
instead of having one code of social, moral, and
physical laws laid down for one and all of us, each
child became a separate study for him ; and its little
'diseases au moral,' as he called them, were treated
differently, according to each different temperament.
. . . Perhaps the brightest picture of the past that
I look back to now is the drawing-room at Eversley, in
the evenings, when we were all at home and by our-
selves. There he sat, with one hand in mother's,
forgetting his own hard work in leading our fun and
frolic, with a kindly smile on his lips, and a loving light
in that bright gray eye, that made us feel that, in the
broadest sense of the word, he was our father."

Of this son, when he was an undergraduate at
Cambridge, his father (then Professor of History) writes :
" Ah ! what a blessing to be able to help him at last
by teaching him something one's self!" And to a
learned "F.G.S." he says very seriously: "My eldest
son is just going off to try his manhood in Colorado,
United States. You will understand, therefore, that it
is somewhat important to me just now whether the
world be ruled by a just and wise God, or by o. It is
also important to me with regard to my own boy's
future, whether what is said to have happened to-morrow
(Good Friday) be true or false."

Writing to his wife from the seaside, where he had

160 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

gone in search of health, he says: "This place is
perfect ; but it seems a dream and imperfect without
you. Kiss the darling ducks of children for me. How
I long after them and their prattle ! I delight in all
the little ones in the street, for their sake, and
continually I start and fancy I hear their voices outside.
You do not know how I love them ; nor did I hardly till
I came here. Absence quickens love into consciousness.
Tell Rose and Maurice that I have got two pair of
bucks' horns — one for each of them, huge old fellows,
almost as big as baby."

Writing from France to "my dear little man/' as
he calls his youngest son (for whom he wrote the Wafer
Babies), he says: "There is a little Egyptian vulture
here in the inn ; ask mother to show you his picture
in the beginning of the bird-book." There was little
danger that the sons of such a clergyman as this would
turn out badly.

A companion picture of Dr. Arnold as a father, has
been drawn by Dean Stanley : " It is impossible ade-
quately to describe the union of the whole family round
him, who was not only the father and guide, but the
elder brother and playfellow of his children; the
gentleness and tenderness which marked his whole
feeling and manner in the privacy of his domestic inter-
course. Enough, however, may perhaps be said to
recall something- at least of its outward aspect. There
was the cheerful voice that used to go sounding through
the house in the early morning, as he went round to
call his children; the new spirits which he seemed
to gather from the mere glimpses of them in the midst
of his occupations — the increased merriment of all in
any game in which he joined — the happy walks on which
he would take them in the fields and hedges, hunting
for flowers — the early excursion to look in the
neighbouring clay-pit for the earliest coltsfoot, with
the mock siege that followed. Nor, again, was the

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 161

sense of his authority as a father ever lost in his playful-
ness as a companion. His personal superintendence
of their ordinary instructions was necessarily limited
by his other engagements, but it was never wholly laid
aside. In the later years of his life it was his custom
to read the Psalms and Lessons of the day with his
family every morning ; and the common reading of a
chapter in the Bible every Sunday evening, with
repetition of hymns or parts of Scripture by every member
of the family — the devotion with which he would himself
repeat his favourite poems from The Christian Year^
or his favourite passages from the Gospels — the same
attitude of deep attention in listening to the questions
of his youngest children, the same reverence in answering
their difficulties that he would have shown to the most
advanced of his friends or his scholars — form a picture
not soon to pass away from the mind of any one who
was ever present. But his teaching in his family was
naturally not confined to any particular occasions ;
they looked to him for information and advice at all
times; and a word of authority from him was a law
not to be questioned for a moment. And with the
tenderness which seemed to be alive to all their wants
and wishes, there was united that peculiar sense of
solemnity, with which, in his eyes, the very idea of a
family life was invested. The anniversaries of domestic
events — the passing away of successive generations —
the entrance of his sons on the several stages of their
education, struck on the deepest chords of his nature,
and made him blend with every prospect of the future
the keen sense of the continuance (so to speak) of
his own existence in the good and evil fortunes of his
children, and to unite the thought of them with the
yet more solemn feeling, with which he was at all
times wont to regard * the blessing ' of * a whole house
transplanted entire from earth to heaven, without one
F failure/ "

i6a HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

What Luther was as a father may be imagined from
a letter which he wrote when absent at the Diet of
Augsburg, to his little boy, aged five years. The mother
had written the home news, especially telling the loving
father about his first-born, so to him, as well as to
her, Luther wrote the following letter, full of fatherly
fondness and charming naturalness.

"Grace and peace in Christ, my dear little boy. I
am pleased to see that thou learnest thy lessons well,
and prayest well. Go on thus, my dear boy, and
when I come home I will bring you a fine fairing.
I know of a pretty garden where are merry children
that have gold frocks, and gather nice apples and plums
and cherries under the trees, and sing and dance, and
ride on pretty horses with gold bridles and silver saddles.
I asked the man of the place whose the garden was,
and who the children were. He said, * These are the
children who pray and learn and are good.' Then I
answered, ' I also have a son, who is called Hans
Luther. May he come to this garden, and eat pears
and apples, and ride a little horse, and play with the
others ? ' The man said, ' If he says his prayers, and
learns, and is good, he may come ; and Lippus and Jost
[Melanchthon's son Philip, and Jonas* son, Jodecus]
may come, and they shall have pipes and drums and
lutes and fiddles, and they shall dance, and shoot
with little crossbows.1 Then he showed me a smooth
lawn in the garden laid out for dancing, and there the
pipes and crossbows hung. But it was still early, and
the children had not dined, and I could not wait for
the dance. So I said, ' Dear sir, I will go straight home
and write all this to my little boy ; but he has an aunt,
Lene (great-aunt Magdalen) that he must bring with
him/ And the man answered, * So it shall be ! go
and write as you say/ Therefore, dear little boy, learn
and pray with a good heart, and tell Lippus and Jost
to do the same, and then you will all come to the garden

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 163

together. Almightly God guard you. Give my love
to Aunt Lene, and give her a kiss for me. — Your loving
father, MARTIN LUTHER."

What is chiefly wanted in the education of children
is a wise mixture of love and firmness. Parental
authority should be regarded as vicegerent authority,
set up by God and ruling in His stead. A parent is
to a child what God is to a good man. He is the moral
governor of the world of childhood. Parental government
is therefore only genuine when it rules for the same ends
as God pursues.

When children accord willing obedience the end of
family government is gained. To attain this end a
parent should be careful to observe the following rules.
First, never to hamper a child with arbitrary restrictions,
but, if possible, always to let the reasons of each
command or prohibition be apparent; secondly, to let
every punishment have some relation to the offence,
and so imitate the great laws of nature, which entail
'definite consequences on every act of wrong; and,
thirdly, never to threaten a punishment and afterwards
shrink from inflicting it; finally, punishment should
be severe enough to serve their purpose, and gentle
enough to ensure the continuance of affection. Nor
should the child be left alone until he feels that the
punishment has been for his own good, and gives
assurance of this feeling by putting on a pleasant face.

Human nature requires amusement as well as
teaching and correction. One of the first duties of a
parent is to sympathise with the play of his children.
How much do little children crave for sympathy ! They
hold out every new object for you to see it with them,
and look up after each gambol for you to rejoice with
them. Let play-time and playthings be given liberally.
Invite suitable companions, and do everything in your
power to make home sweet. Authority, so unbent,
will be all the stronger and more welcome from our

1 64 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

display of real sympathy. If family government were
well carried out in every home, children would be
happier and better than they are now. Then there
would be, even in our own great towns, a partial
realisation of the words of the prophet Zechariah, in
reference to Jerusalem delivered: "And the streets of
the city shall be full of boys and girls, playing in
the streets thereof."

The home of our children ought never to be a prison
where there is plenty of rule and order, but no love and
no pleasure. We should remember that " he who makes
a little child happier for an hour is a fellow- worker
with God."

It was bitterly said of a certain Pharisaical household
that in it " no one should please himself, neither should
he please any one else ; for in either case he would be
thought to be displeasing God." This reminds us of
the Scotchman who, having gone back to his country
after a long absence, declared that the whole kingdom
was on the road to perdition. " People," he said,
"used to be reserved and solemn on the sabbath, but
now they look as happy on that day as on any other."
It is a blessed thing for the rising generation that such
grotesque perversions of religion are seldom presented
to them now; for every well-instructed Christian ought
to be aware that religion does not banish mirth, but
only moderates and sets rules to it.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 165

CHAPTER XX.

POLITENESS AT HOME.

Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon
these, in a great measure, the laws depend. The law
teaches us but here and there, now and then. Manners
are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or
debase, barbarise or refine us, by a constant, steady,
uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we
breathe in. They give their whole form and colour to
our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals,
they supply laws, or they totally destroy them. — BURKE.

ABOUT twelve thousand police in London are able to
take care of about four million people. How is it done ?
Chiefly by moral force, and, above all, by civility.
Sir Edmund Henderson, who was Chief Commissioner
of Police, once said that it was by " strict attention to
duty, by sobriety, and above all, by civility," that the
police endeavoured to do their duty. " I lay great
stress upon civility;" he added, "for I think it is the
great characteristic of the metropolitan police force."

If civility and politeness have such an influence upon
the hard, rough world of London, how much greater
will be the effect of good manners or beautiful behaviour,
not only in rendering comparatively safe the many
difficult crossings in the path of newly-married people,

z66 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED,

but also in adorning even the smallest details of family
life ! True courtesy exhibits itself in a disposition to
contribute to the happiness of others, and in refraining
from all that may annoy them. And the cultivation
day by day of this sweet reasonableness is almost as
necessary to the comfort of those who live together as
the daily calls of the milkman and the baker. If no
two people have it so much in their power to torment
each other as husband and wife, it is their bounden
duty to guard against this liability by cultivating the
habit of domestic politeness. It is a mistake to suppose
that the forms of courtesy can be safely dispensed with
in the family circle. With the disappearance of the
forms the reality will too often disappear. The very
effort of appearing bright under adverse circumstances
is sure to render cheerfulness easier on another occasion.
y Good manners, like good words, cost little and are
worth much. They oil the machinery of social life,
but more especially of domestic life. If a cheerful
" Good - morning " and " Good - evening " conciliate
strangers, they are not lost upon a wife. Hardness
and repulsiveness of manner originate in want of respect
for the feelings of others.

"Remember," says Sydney Smith, "that your
children, you wife, and your servants have rights and
feelings; treat them as you would treat persons who
could turn again. Do not attempt to frighten children
and inferiors by passion; it does more harm to your
own character than it does good to them. Passion
gets less and less powerful after every defeat. Husband
energy for the real demand which *the dangers of life
make upon it." Good manners are more than
"surface Christianity." Rowland Hill was right
when he said, "I do not think much of a man's
religion unices his dog and cat are the happier for it."

" Woman was made out of a rib from the side of
Adam — not out of his head to top him, not out of his

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 167

feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side
to be equal to him : under his arm to be protected,
and near his heart to be loved."

Use the woman tenderly, tenderly ;
From a crooked rib God made her slenderly
Straight and strong He did not make her,
So if you try to bend you'll break her.

Men are cautioned by the Jewish Talmud to be
careful lest they cause women to weep, " for God
counts their tears."

There are some people who stretch their manners
to such an unnatural degree in society that they are
pretty sure to go to the opposite extreme when relaxing
at home. Feeling released from something that was
hanging over them, they run wild and become rude
in consequence of their late restraint.

Is it not, to say the least, probable that such patient
humility as the following would be followed by a re-
action? Bishop Thirlwall was generally regarded,
except by the small circle of those who knew him
intimately, with much awe by his clergy, who thought
that they had better keep as far as possible out of the
way of their terribly logical and rather sarcastic
diocesan. The legend was that he had trained a
highly sagacious dog into the habit of detecting and
biting intrusive curates. An amusing story is told of
a humble-minged Levite who was staying at Abergwili
Palace on the occasion of an ordination. An egg was
placed before him, which, on tapping, proved a very
bad one indeed. The Bishop made a kindly apology,
and told a servant to bring a fresh one. "No, thank
you, my lord," replied the young clergyman, with a
penitential expression of countenance ; " it is quite good
enough for me," We think that the clergyman's wife
would have acted rashly if, soon after this occurrence,

168 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

she should have tried the patience of her Job with an
antiquated egg.

The proverb " familiarity breeds contempt " suggests
another reason why the manners displayed at home
are not, generally speaking, as good as they should be.

There is generally greater harmony when a husband's
duties necessitate his remaining several hours of the
day from home. " For this relief, much thanks ! " will
be the not unnatural sentiment of a grateful wife. And
to the husband, on his return, home will appear far
sweeter than if he had idled about the house all day
with nothing to do but torment his wife. Richter says
that distance injures love less than nearness. People
are more polite when they do not see too much of
each other.

Madam ! no gentleman is entitled to such dis-
tinguished consideration as your husband. Sir ! no
lady is entitled to such deferential treatment as your
wife.

Awkward consequences that could not have been
foreseen have sometimes followed domestic rudeness.
It is related of Lord Ellenborough that, when on one
occasion he was about to set out on circuit, his wife
expressed a wish to accompany him ; a proposition to
which his lordship assented, provided there were no
bandboxes tucked under the seat of his carriage, as
he had too often found there had been when honoured
with her ladyship's company before. Accordingly they
both set out together, but had not proceeded very far
before the judge, stretching out his legs under the
seat in front of him, kicked against one of the flimsy
receptacles which he had specially prohibited. Down
went the window with a bang and out went the band-
box into the ditch. The startled coachman immediately
commenced to pull up, but was ordered to drive on
and let the thing lie where it was. They reached the
assize town in due course, and his lordship proceeded

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 169

to robe for the court. " And now, where's my wig ? —
where's my wig ? " he demanded, when everything else
had been donned. "Your wig, my lord," replied the
servant tremulously, "was in that bandbox your lord-
ship threw out of the window as we came along."

Sir Robert Walpole used to say that he never despaired
of making up a quarrel between women unless one of
them had called the other old or ugly. In the same
way married people need not despair of realising truly
united and therefore happy lives if they will only study
each other's weak points, as skaters look out for the
weak parts of the ice, in order to keep off them.

Nothing is more unmanly as well as unmannerly
than for a husband to speak disparagingly of either
his wife or of the marriage state before strangers.
Lord Erskine once declared at a large party that "a
wife was a tin canister tied to one's tail ; " upon which
Sheridan, who was present when the remark was made,
presented to Lady Erskine the following lines :

Lord Erskine, at woman presuming to rail,
Calls a wife a tin canister tied to one's tail ;
And fair Lady Anne, while the subject he carries on,
Seems hurt at his lordship's degrading comparison.

But wherefore degrading ? Considered aright,
A canister's polished and useful and bright ;
And should dirt its original purity hide,
That's the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied.

The " puppy " only got what he deserved.

When a husband happens to be a mere goose, happy
if only a goose, though he may keep up the delusion
that he is the "head of the family," it becomes the
wife's duty to exercise real control. But she may be
a responsible Prime Minister without usurping, much
less parading, the insignia of Royalty. And if she

170 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

have the feelings of a gentlewoman she will not allow
every one to see the reigns of government in her hand,
as did a colonel's wife known to me, of whom even the
privates and drummer boys in her husband's (?)

regiment used to say: "Mrs. , she's the colonel."

What Burke said of his wife's eyes describe woman's
proper place in the domestic Cabinet : " Her eyes
have a mild light, but they awe when she pleases;
they command, like a good man out of office, not by
authority, but by virtue." Too often it is the poor
wife who has to bear the heaviest part of the burdens
of domestic life, while the unchivalrous husband struts
before as head of the house quite unencumbered.

Even the youngest child may claim to be treated
with politeness. "I feel," said President Garfield,
"a profounder reverence for a boy than for a man.
Inever meet a ragged boy in the street without feeling
hat I may owe him a salute, for I know not what
possibilities may be buttoned up under his coat."
Fathers should look upon their children with respect,
for he who is "only a child" may become a much
better and greater man than his father.

Without spoiling our children we should make their
lives as pleasant as we possibly can, always remem-
bering that the poor things never asked to be born,
and that they may "not long remain." The boy dies
perhaps at the age of ten or twelve. Of what use
then all the restraints, all the privations, all the pain,
that you have inflicted upon him? He falls, and
leaves your mind to brood over the possibility of your
having abridged a life so dear to you.

For good and for evil home is a school of manners.
Children reflect, as in a mirror, not only the general
habits and characters of their parents, but even their
manner of gesture and of speech. " A fig-tree looking
on a fig-tree becometh fruitful." If "a gentleman
always a gentleman " and " a lady always a lady " are

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 171

the examples set by papa and mamma, the children
will take them in almost through the pores of the
skin.

" For the child," says Richter, "the most important
era of life is that of childhood, when he begins to
colour and mould himself by companionship with
others. Every new educator affects less than his
predecessor, until at last, if we regard all life as an
educational institution, a circumnavigator of the world
is less influenced by all the nations he has seen than
by his nurse."

172 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

CHAPTER XXL

SUNSHINE.
Love is sunshine. — LONGFELLOW.

God wishes us to have sunlight in our homes. He
would have in them a tender play of laughter and humour,
a pleasant interchange of light and colour and warmth,
In word and mirth, which makes the brightness perfect,
and is as much the work of the sunlight in the house,
as the delightful gaiety of nature is the doing of the
sun. — STOPFORD BROOKE.

IT is a comparatively easy thing to preserve a cheerful
appearance when away from home, or even to present
a brave front to meet the great emergencies of life.
And yet the most genial-hearted of diners-out may be
a domestic bully in the privacy of his own household;
and the hero who has faced a battery without shrinking
may be unable to take a cup of lukewarm coffee from
his wife's hands without a grumble. The real happi-
ness of a home depends upon a determination to lay
no undue stress upon little matters, and a resolve to
hold one's own irritability in constant check. For it
is the sum of trivial affairs that make up the day's
account, and it is the —

Cares that petty shadows cast,
By which our lives are chiefly proved*

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 173

True home sunshine, if it consistently brighten the
features of one member in a family, is pretty sure to
be reflected from the faces of the rest.

"I thought," said a father, the other day, "as I
sat in the railway carriage on my way home, of my
impatience with the members of my family, and I felt
ashamed. As soon as they are out of my sight I see
clearly where my mistakes are; but when they are
around me I forget my good resolutions."

It is quite true that the dear ones at home are more
to us than Kings and Queens, than House of Lords or
House of Commons, than the mightiest and noblest in
the world. And yet we often treat them worse than
we treat strangers. With others, whom we meet in
business or in society, we are half unconsciously on our
guard. Hasty words are repressed, and frowns are
banished. But the dear ones at home usually have
the pleasure or the pain of seeing us precisely as we
are in the mood of the moment. To their sorrow we
"make no strangers" of them. If our nerves are
over-strung, or our tempers tried, so far from endeavour-
ing to conceal the fact we make them feel it. The hero
in great crises may be moved by the pressure of small
annoyances to throw a boot at his valet de chambre, or
to snarl at his wife. Individually these faults of temper
may be small, but so are the locusts that collectively
conceal the sun. " Only perfection can bear with
imperfection." ^The better a man becomes the more
allowance will he make for the shortcomings of others.)

In order to have sunlight at home, it is not enough
negatively to abstain from fault-finding and general
peevishness. We should recognise praise as a positive
duty. If a thing is done wrongly, better sometimes
to say nothing about it. Wait until it happens to be
done rightly, and then give marked praise. The third
time, the charm of your approbation will produce a
much better performance. If it is possible to "damn

174 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

with faint praise," how much more damaging must be —
no praise at all. How much potential goodness and
greatness would become actual but for the wet blanket
of sullen silence ! " As we must account for every idle
word, so we must for every idle silence." This saying
of Franklin should suggest speech in season to un-
grateful husbands who never throw a word of
encouragement to their wives, however deserving,
In military riding schools may often be heard the
command — " Make much of your horses ! " The horses
have been trotting, galloping, and jumping. They
have had to stand quietly while the men dismounted
and fired their carbines kneeling before them. They
have gone through their parts well, so after the men
have again mounted, the order is given — " Make much
of your horses ! " and all the riders pat simultaneously
the proudly-arched necks of their deserving steeds.
Husbands, take the hint and make much of your
wives !

We may here introduce some words of Miss Cobbe
in reference to the moral atmosphere of the house,
which depends so immensely on the tone of the mistress.
" I conceive that good, and" even high animal spirits
are among the most blessed of possessions — actual
wings to bear us up over the dusty or muddy roads
of life; and I think that to keep up the spirits of a
household is not only indefinitely to add to its happiness,
but also to make all duties comparatively light and
easy. Thus, however naturally depressed a mistress
may be, I think she ought to struggle to be cheerful,
and to take pains never to quench the blessed spirits
of her children or guests. All of us who live long in
great cities get into a sort of subdued-cheerfulness tone.
We are neither very sad nor very glad : we neither
cry, nor ever enjoy that delicious experience of helpless
laughter, the fou rira which is the joy of youth. I
wish we could be more really light of heart." We all

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 175

share this wish ; but how is it to be realised ? \py living
simple, well-regulated lives, and by casting all our
anxiety upon God who careth for us.

Professor Blaikie commences a paper on " How to
Get Rid of Trouble," by saying that once he had occasion
to call on the chief of the constabulary force in one
of our largest cities. " The conversation having turned
on the arrangements for extinguishing fire, the chief
constable entered with great alacrity into the subject,
and after some verbal explanations, added, ' If you
can spare half an hour, I will call out my men, and
you shall see how we proceed.' I was taken aback
at the idea of the firemen and engines being called
out on a fine summer day to let a stranger see
them at work ; so I thanked him for his offer, but
added that I could not think of giving him so much
trouble. 'Trouble!' said he; * what's that? That's
a word I don't know.' ' You are a happy man,' was
the reply, 'if you don't know the meaning of trouble.'
'No, indeed,' he said. "I assure you I do not. The
word is not in my dictionary.' As I was still in-
credulous, and wondering whether or not he had lost
his senses, he rang the bell, and bade his clerk fetch
him an English dictionary. Handing it to me, he said,
'Now, sir, please look and see whether you can find
the word "trouble."' I turned to the proper place, and
there, to be sure, where the word had been, I found
it carefully erased by three lines of red ink. Of course
I caught the idea at once. In a great work like that
of the police in such a place, trouble was never to be
thought of. No inroad that might be required on
the ease, or the sleep, or the strength of any member
of the force was ever to be grudged on the score that
it was too much trouble. In the work of that office
the thought of trouble was to be unknown. I felt that
I had got a sermon from the chief of police, and a
notable sermon, too. The three lines of red ink were

176 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

as clear and telling as any three heads into which I
had ever divided my discourse. It was a thrilling
sermon, too — it set something vibrating within me."

This incident refers to trouble in the active sense ;
but even trouble in the sense of sorrow and disappoint-
ment may be to a large extent effaced from the family
circle by certain red lines. Here is one of them. DC
not make the trouble worse than it really is. Rather le:
us resolve to look at the bright side of things. If we
had nothing more to think of, the proverbs that have
been coined in the mint of hope ought to encourage
us. " Nothing so bad but it might have been worse; "
" 'Tis always morning somewhere in the world;"
" When things are at the worst they mend ; " " The
darkest hour of night is that which precedes the dawn."
Let us try to form the habit of thinking how much
there is to cheer us even when there may be much to
depress; how often, on former occasions of trouble,
we have been wonderfully helped ; how foolish it is
to anticipate evil before it comes.

" How dismal you look ! " said a bucket to his
companion, as they were going to the well. "Ah!"
replied the other, " I was reflecting on the uselessness
of our being filled, for let us go away ever so full, we
always come back empty." "Dear me! how strange
to look at it in that way ! " said the other bucket.
4 'Now I enjoy the thought that however empty we
come, we always go away full. Only look at it in
that light, and you will be as cheerful as I am."

Another red line which effaces trouble is patience.
Speaking of the cheerful submission and trust of the
London poor, a well-known clergyman says: " Come with
me ; turn under this low doorway ; climb these narrow
creaking stairs; knock at the door. A pleasant voice
bids you enter. You see a woman sixty-four years of age,
her hands folded and contracted, her whole body crippled
and curled together, as cholera cramped, and rheuma-

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 177

tism fixed it twenty-eight years ago. For sixteen years
she has not moved from her bed, nor looked out of
the window ; and has been in constant pain, while she
cannot move a limb. Listen — she is thankful. For
what ? For the use of one thumb ; with a two-pronged
fork, fastened to a stick, she can turn over the leaves
of an old-fashioned Bible, when placed within her reach.
Hear her : < I'm content to lie here as long as it shall
please Him, and to go when He shall call me.1 "

The third red line we would suggest is — Try to get
good out of your troubles. Undoubtedly it is to be
got, if the right way be taken to extract it. Scarcely
any loss is without compensation. How often has the
dignity of self-support and self-respect been gained
when an external prop has been removed ! How
often have we been eventually glad that our wishes
were not fulfilled! Plato tells us that "just penalties
are the best gifts of the gods," and Goethe said he
never had an affliction that he did not turn into a
poem. The daylight must fade before we can behold
the shining worlds around us, and the rigour of winter
must be endured before out hearts can thrill with delight
at the approach of Spring.

For the sake of household sunshine we should
endeavour to keep in health. Lowness of tone,
nervous irritability, the state of being ill-at-ease—
these and many other forms of ill-health may, as a
general rule, be avoided by those who endeavour to
preserve their health as a sacred duty. If most people
have but little health, it is because they transgress the
laws of nature, alternately stimulating and depressing
themselves. For our own sake and for the sake of
others whom we trouble by irritability, we are bound to
obey these laws — fresh air, exercise, moderate work,
conquest of appetite.

"The deception," says Sydney Smith, "as practised
upon human creatures, is curious and entertaining.

178 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

My friend sups late ; he eats some strong soup, then
a lobster, then some tart, and he dilutes these esculent
varieties with wine. The next day I call upon him.
He is going to sell his house in London, and to retire
into the country. He is alarmed for his eldest
daughter's health. His expenses are hourly increasing,
and nothing but a timely retreat can save him from
ruin. All this is the lobster; and when over-excited
nature has had time to manage this testaceous encum-
brance, the daughter recovers, the finances are in good
order, and every rural idea effectually excluded from
the mind. In the same manner old friendships are
destroyed by toasted cheese, and hard, salted meat
has led to suicide. Unpleasant feelings of the body
produce correspondent sensations in the mind, and a
great scene of wretchedness is sketched out by a morsel
of indigestible and misguided food. Of such infinite
consequence to happiness is it to study the body ! "

On the other hand, " A merry heart doeth good like
a medicine." We should "laugh and be well," as
enjoined by an old English versifier.

To cure the mind's wrong bias, spleen,
Some recommend the bowling-green ;
Some, hilly walks ; all, exercise ;
Fling but a stone, the giant dies ;
Laugh and be well. Monkeys have been
Extreme good doctors for the spleen ;
And kitten, if the humour hit,
Has harlequined away the fit.

It is the bounden duty of those who live together to
cultivate the sunny side of life. To rejoice with those
who rejoice is as much a duty as to weep with those
that weep. Many have not that "great hereditary
constitutional joy " which springs from a natural genius
for happiness, but all may at least try to add to the

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 179

stock of the household's cheerfulness. It is about the
most useful contribution that any member of a family
can make.

As, although in the season of rainstorms and showers,

The tree may strike deeper its roots ;
It needs the warm brightness of sunshiny hours,

To ripen the blossoms and fruits.

Sunlike pleasures never shine in idle homes. If a
useful occupation or innocent hobby be not provided
for the several members of a family, they are sure
to spend their time in maliciously tormenting each
other.

Those whose only care in life is to avoid care make
a great mistake. They forget that even roses have
thorns, and that pleasure is appreciated and enjoyed
for its variety and contrast of pain. After all there is
but one way of producing sunshine in our homes.
We must first let the light into our own souls, and
then like burning glasses we shall give it out to others,
but especially to those of our own household. And
whence comes the soul's calm sunshine and joy in right
doing but from the Sun of Righteousness ?

If there are many unhappy homes, many wretched
families — more by far than is generally supposed — what
is the cure for this? "Sweet reasonableness" as
taught by Jesus Christ. If we would let Him into
our houses to dwell with us, and form one of our
family circle, He would turn our homes into little
Edens.

i8o HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

CHAPTER XXII.

THEY HAD A FEW WORDS.

Something light as air — a look,
A word unkind or wrongly taken —
Oh, love, that tempests never shook,
A breath, a touch like this hath shaken,
And ruder words will soon rush in
To spread the breach that words begin.

MOORE.

Married life should be a sweet, harmonious song, and,
like one of Mendelssohn's, "without words"— Judy.

WHEN the sunshine of domestic bliss has become more
or less clouded by quarrels between a husband and wife,
observers very often describe the state of affairs by the
euphemism at the head of this chapter. " They had
a few words " — this is the immediate cause of many
a domestic catastrophe. A young man was sent to
Socrates to learn oratory. On being introduced to the
philosopher he talked so incessantly that Socrates asked
for double fees. "Why charge me double?" said the
young fellow. " Because," said Socrates, "I must
teach you two sciences; the one hoyvr to hold your
tongue, and the other how to speak." 'it is impossible
for people to be happy in matrimony who will not learn
the first of these sciences.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 181

We do not know whether Simonides was or was not
a married man, but we fancy he must have been, for
he used to say that he never regretted holding his
tongue, but very often was sorry for having spoken.
"Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? There
is more hope of a fool than of him." Sober second
thoughts suggest palliatives and allowances that temper
prevents us from noticing. ( The simple act of self-
denial in restraining the expression of unpleasant
feelings or harsh thoughts is the foundation stone of
a happy homei For nothing draws people so closely
together as the constant experience of mutual pleasure,
and nothing so quickly drives them asunder as the
frequent endurance of pain caused by one another's
presence.

One doth not know
How much an ill word may empoison liking.

Sometimes the husband blames the wife and the wife
the husband when neither of them is at fault. This
always reminds us of Pat's mistake. Two Irishmen
walking along the same street, but coming from opposite
directions, approached, both smiling and apparently
recognising one another. As they came closer they
discovered that it was a mutual mistake. Equal to
the occasion one of them said, "Och, my friend, I see
how it is. You thought it was me, and I thought it
was you, and now it's naythur of us."

Burton tells of a woman who, hearing one of her
" gossips" complain of her husband's impatience, told
her an excellent remedy for it She gave her a glass
of water, which, when he brawled, she should hold
still in her mouth. She did so two or three times
with great success, and at length, seeing her neighbour,
she thanked her for it, and asked to know the in-
gredients. She told her that it was "fair water,"

i8s HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

and nothing more, for it was not the water, but her
silence which performed the cure.

There are people who are kind in their actions and
.yet brutal in their speech, and they forget that it is
not every one who can bear, like Bos well, to be told
he is a fool. A woman may think she is always right
and her husband always wrong, but it does not make
the wheels of domestic life run smoother to say this
in plain English. A man may have a contempt
for his wife's dearest brother, but to tell the wife or
brother so is not conducive to harmony.

It has sometimes been remarked that the marriage
of a deaf and dumb man to a blind woman would
have obvious advantages. Each of the parties would
acquire an opportunity to practise little pantomimic
scenes from which ordinary married folks are debarred.
When they quarrelled, for instance — *• the wife being
unable to see, while the husband could not hear or
speak — she could hurl at him broadside after broad-
side of steel - pointed invective; and the poor man
could but stand there, study the motion of her lips,
and fondly imagine she was telling him how sorry
she was that anything should come between them.
He, on the other hand, could sit down, shake his
fists, and make hideous grimaces, she all the while
thinking he was sitting with his face buried in
his hands, and hot remorseful tears streaming from
his eyes. Husbands and wives who are not deprived
of the use of their faculties might take the hint and
resolve not to use them too keenly on certain occasions.
In a matrimonial quarrel they need not hear or see
everything.

If you your lips would keep from slips,

Five things observe with care :
Cywhom you speak, to whom you speak

And hoW) and whent and where.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 183

The "last word" is the most dangerous of infernal
machines. Husband and wife should no more fight
to get it than they would struggle for the possession
of a lighted bomb-shell. What is the use of the last
word? After getting it a husband might perhaps, as
an American newspaper suggests, advertise to whistle
for a wager against a locomotive; but in every other
respect his victory would be useless and painful. It
would be a Cadmean victory, in which the victor
would suffer as much as the vanquished. A farmer
cut down a tree which stood so near the boundary
line of his farm that it was doubtful whether it
belonged to him or to his neighbour. The neighbour,
however, claimed the tree, and prosecuted the man
who cut it for damages. The case was sent from
court to court. Time was wasted and temper lost;
but the case was finally gained by the prosecutor.
The last of the transaction was that the man who
gained the cause went to the lawyer's office to execute
a deed of his whole farm, which he had been com-
pelled to sell to pay his costs ! Then, houseless and
homeless, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and
triumphantly exclaimed, "I've beat him!" In the
same way husband and wife may become bankrupt
of heart -wealth by endeavouring to get the last
word.

Men sometimes become fractious from pure
monotony. When they are unable to find subjects
for profitable conversation there arises a propensity
to "nag" and find fault. In a Russian story, the
title of which in English is Buried Alive, two
prisoners are talking in the night, and one relates:
" I had got, somehow or other, in the way of
beating her (his wife). Some days I would keep at
it from morning till night. I did not know what to
do with myself when I was not beating her. She
used to sit crying, and I could not help feeling sorry

184 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

for her, and so I beat her." Subsequently he murdered
her. Are there not men above the class of wife-beaters
who indulge in fault-finding, "nagging," and other
forms of tongue - castigation ? They have got into
the habit They do not know what to do with them-
selves when not so employed. The tears of their wives
only irritate them.

Of course some wives are quite capable of giving
as much as they get. It is said that at a recent
fashionable wedding, after the departure of the happy
pair, a dear little girl, whose papa and mamma were
among the guests, asked, with a child's innocent
inquisitiveness : "Why do they throw things at the
pretty lady in the carriage?" " For luck, dear,"
replied one of the bridesmaids. "And why," again
asked the child, "doesn't she throw them back?"
"Oh," said the young lady, "that would be rude."
"No, it wouldn't," persisted the dear little thing to
the delight of her doting parents who stood by: "ma
does."

"As the climbing up a sandy way is to the feet
of the aged, so is a wife full of words to a quiet
man." She who "has a tongue of her own" has
always more last words to say, and, if she ever does
close her mouth, the question suggests itself whether
she should not be arrested for carrying concealed
weapons. On the tombs of such wives might be
inscribed epitaphs like the following, which is to be
found in a churchyard in Surrey :

Here lies, returned to clay,

Miss Arabella Young,
Who on the first of May

Began to hold her tongue.

Poor Caudle, as a rule, thought discretion the
better part of valour, and sought refuge in the arms

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 185

of soothing slumber; but there are some men who do
not allow their wives to have it all their own way
without at least an occasional protest. " Do you
pretend to have as good a judgment as I have ? " said
an enraged wife to her husband. "Well, no," he
replied deliberately; "our choice of partners for life
shows that my judgment is not to be compared to
yours." When they have "a few words," however,
the woman usually has the best of it. "See here,"
said a fault-finding husband, we must have things
arranged in this house so that we shall know where
everything is kept." "With all my heart," sweetly
answered his wife, "and let us begin with your late
hours, my love. I should much like to know where
they are kept."

Such matrimonial word-battles may amuse outsiders
as the skill of gladiators used to amuse, but the
combatants make themselves very miserable. Far
better to be incapable of making a repartee if we
only use the power to wound the feelings of the one
whom we have vowed to love. There is an art of
putting things that should be studied by married
people. How many quarrels would be avoided if
we could always say with courtesy and tact any
unpleasant thing that may have to be said ! It is
related of a good-humoured celebrity that when a man
once stood before him and his friend at the theatre,
completely shutting out all view of the stage, instead
of asking him to sit down, or in any way giving offence,
he simply said, "I beg your pardon, sir; but when
you see or hear anything particularly interesting on
the stage, will you please let us know, as we are
entirely dependent on your kindness ? " That was
sufficient. With a smile and an apology that only
the art of putting things could have extracted, the
gentleman took his seat. There is a story of a separa-
tion which took place simply because a gracious

186 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

announcement had been couched by a husband in
ungracious terras. "My dear, here is a little present
I have brought to make you good-tempered. " "Sir,"
was the indignant reply, "do you dare to say that it
is necessary to bribe me into being good-tempered?
Why, I am always good-tempered; it is your violent
temper, sir!" And so the quarrel went on to the
bitter end.

It is a very difficult thing to find fault well. We all
have to find fault at times, in reference to servants,
children, husband, or wife; but in a great number of
cases the operation loses half its effect, or has no effect
at all, perhaps a downright bad effect, because of the
way in which it is done. Above all things remember
this caution, never to find fault when out of temper.
Again, there is a time not to find fault, and in the right
perception of when that time is lies no small part of the
art. The reproof which has most sympathy in it will be
most effectual. It understands and allows for infirmity.
It was this sympathy that prompted Dr. Arnold to take
such pains in studying the characters of his pupils, so
that he might best adapt correction of each particular
case.

The very worst time for a husband and wife to have
"a few words" is dinner-time, because, if we have a
good dinner, our attention should be bestowed on what
we are eating. He who bores us at dinner robs us of
pleasure and injures our health, a fact which the alderman
realised when he exclaimed to a stupid interrogator,
14 With your confounded questions, sir, youVe made me
swallow a piece of green fat without tasting it." Many a
poor wife has to swallow her dinner without tasting it
because her considerate husband chooses this time to
find fault with herself, the children, the servants, and
with everything except himself. The beef is too much
done, the vegetables too little, everything is cold. €l I
think you might look after something ! Oh ! that is

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 187

no excuse," and so on, to the great disturbance of his
own and his wife's digestion. God sends food, but the
devil sends the few cross words that prevent it from
doing us any good. We should have at least three
laughs during dinner, and every one is bound to con-
tribute a share of agreeable table-talk, good humour, and
cheerfulness.

" In politics," said Cavour, " nothing is so absurd as
rancour." In the same way we may say that nothing is
so absurd in matrimony as sullen silence. Reynolds in
his Life and Times tells of a free-and-easy actor who
passed three festive days at the seat of the Marquis and
Marchioness of — ~ without any invitation, convinced
(as proved to be the case) that, my lord and my lady not
being on speaking terms, each would suppose the other
had asked him. A soft answer turns away wrath, and
when a wife or a husband is irritated there is nothing
like letting a subject drop. Then silence is indeed
golden. But the silence persisted in— -as by the lady in
the old comedy, who, in reply to her husband's " For
Heaven's sake, my dear, do tell me what you mean,"
obstinately keeps her lips closed — is an instrument of
deadly torture. "A wise man by his words maketh
himself beloved." To this might be added that on
certain occasions a fool by his obstinate silence maketh
himself hated.

" According to Milton, * Eve kept silence in Eden to
hear her husband talk,'" said a gentleman to a lady
friend ; and then added, in a melancholy tone, " Alas !
there have been no Eves since." " Because," quickly
retorted the lady, " there have been no husbands worth
listening to." Certainly there are too few men who exert
themselves to be as agreeable to their wives (their best
friends), as they are to the comparative strangers or
secret enemies whom they meet at clubs and other
places of resort. And yet if it is true that " to be agree-
able in our family circle is not only a positive duty but

i88 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

an absolute morality," then every husband and wife
should say on their wedding day :

To balls and routs for fame let others roam,
Be mine the happier lot to please at home.

In one of the letters of Robertson, of Brighton, he
tells of a lady who related to him "the delight, the
tears of gratitude which she had witnessed in a poor girl
to whom, in passing, I gave a kind look on going out
of church on Sunday. What a lesson ! How cheaply
happiness can be given ! What opportunities we miss
of doing an angel's work ! I remember doing it, full of
sad feelings, passing on, and thinking no more about it ;
and it gave an hour's sunshine to a human life, and
lightened the load of life to a human heart for a
time ! " If even a look can do so much, who shall
estimate the power of kind or unkind words in making
married life happy or miserable? In the home circle
more than anywhere else-
Words are mighty, words are living :

Serpents with their venomous stings,
Or bright angels, crowding round us,

With heaven's light upon their wings.
Every word has its own spirit,
True or false that never dies ;
Every word man's lips have uttered
Echoes in God's skies.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 189

CHAPTER XXIII.

PULLING TOGETHER.

When souls, that should agree to will the same,
To have one common object for their wishes,
Look different ways, regardless of each other,
Think what a train of wretchedness ensues !

SAID a husband to his angry wife : " Look at Carlo and
Kitty asleep on the rug; I wish men lived half as
agreeably with their wives." "Stop!" said the lady.
" Tie them together, and see how they will agree ! "
If men and women when tied together sometimes agree
very badly what is the reason? Because instead of
pulling together each of them wishes to have his or her
own way. But when they do pull together what greater
thing is there for them than " to feel that they are
joined for life, to strengthen each other in all labour, to
rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each
other in all pain, to be one with each other in the silent
unspeakable memories at the moment of the last
parting " ?

What is meant by pulling together may be explained
by referring to the custom of the " Dunmow flitch," which
was founded by Juga, a noble lady, in A.D. mi, and
restored by Robert de Fritz waiter in 1244. It was that
any person from any part of England going to Dunmow
in Essex, and humbly kneeling on two stones at the

190 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED,

church door, may claim a gammon of bacon if he can
swear that for twelve months and a day he has never had
a household brawl or wished himself unmarried. Hence
the phrase " He may fetch a flitch of bacon from
Dunmow," i.e., He is so amiable and good-tempered
that he will never quarrel with his wife. To eat
Dunmow bacon is to live in conjugal amity. There
were only eight claimants admitted to eat the flitch
between the years 1244-1772, a number that seems to
justify Prior's sarcastic couplet :

Ah, madam, cease to be mistaken,
Few married fowl peck Dunmow bacon.

It is a great pity that "few married fowl peck
Dunmow bacon," for those that do are so happy that
they may be called birds of Paradise.

"A well-matched couple carry a joyful life between
them,1 as the two spies carried the cluster of Eshcol.
They multiply their joys by sharing them, and lessen
their troubles by dividing them : this is fine arithmetic.
The wagon of care rolls lightly along as they pull
together, and when it drags a little heavily, or there's
a hitch anywhere, they love each other all the more,
and so lighten the labour." When there is wisdom in
the husband there is generally gentleness in the wife,
and between them the old wedding wish is worked out :
" One year of joy, another of comfort, and all the rest
of content."

When two persons without any spiritual affinity are
bound together in irrevocable bondage, it is to their
"unspeakable weariness and despair," and life becomes
to them "a drooping and disconsolate household
captivity, without refuge or redemption." Such unions
are marriages only in name. They are a mere housing
together.

However, this doctrine may easily be exaggerated,

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 191

and certainly married people ought to be very slow in
allowing themselves to think that it is impossible for
them to hit it off or pull with the partners of their lives.
Those who cherish unhealthy sentimentalism on this
subject would do well to brace themselves up by reading
a little of the robust common sense of Dr. Johnson.
Talk ing one evening of Mrs. Careless, the doctor said :
" If I had married her, it might have been as happy
for me." Boswell: "Pray, sir, do you not suppose
that there are fifty women in the world, with any one
of whom a man may be as happy as with any one
woman in particular ?" Johnson: "Ay, sir, fifty
thousand." Boswell : "Then, sir, you are not of opinion
with some who imagine that certain men and certain
women are made for each other ; and that they cannot
be happy if they miss their counterparts." Johnson:
"To be sure not, sir. I believe marriages would in
general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all
made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration
of the characters and circumstances, without the parties
having any choice in the matter."

The following, too, is interesting, for we may gather
from it how, in Johnson's opinion, the feat of living
happily with any one of fifty thousand women could
be accomplished. The question was started one evening
whether people who differed on some essential point
could live in friendship together. Johnson said they
might. Goldsmith said they could not, as they had not
the idem veil* atque idem nolle — the same likings and
the same aversions. Johnson: "Why, sir, you must
shun the subject as to which you disagree. For instance,
I can live very well with Burke; I love his knowledge,
his genius, his diffusion, and affluence of conversation ;
but I would not talk to him of the Rockingham party."
Goldsmith: "But, sir, when people live together who
have something as to which they disagree, and which
they want to shun, they will be in the situation mentioned

i92 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

in the story of Bluebeard, ' You may look into all the
chambers but one.1 But we should have the greatest
inclination to look into that chamber, to talk over that
subject." Johnson (with a loud voice): "Sir, I am not
saying that ^02* could live in friendship with a man from
whom you differ as to some point: I am only saying
that /could do it."

In matrimony, as in religion, in things essential there
should be unity, in things indifferent diversity, in all
things charity.

In matrimony, though it is the closest and dearest
friendship, shades of character and the various qualities
of mind and heart, never approximate to such a degree
as to preclude all possibility of misunderstanding. But
the broad and firm principles upon which all honourable
and enduring sympathy is founded, the love of truth,
the reverence for right, the abhorrence of all that is base
and unworthy, admit of no difference or misunderstand-
ing ; and where these exist in the relations of two people
united for life, love, and happiness, as perfect as this
imperfect existence affords, may be realised. But the
rule is different in matters that are not essential. In
reference to these married people should cultivate "the
sympathy of difference." They should agree to differ
each respecting the tastes and prejudices of the other.

At no time are husbands and wives seen to greater
advantage than when yielding their own will in un-
important matters to the will of another, and we quite
agree with a writer who makes the following remark :
" Great actions are so often performed from little motives
of vanity, self-complacency, and the like, that I am apt
to think more highly of the person whom I observe
checking a reply to a petulant speech, or even submit-
ting to the judgment of another in stirring the fire >
than of one who gives away thousands ! "

In all things there should be charity. Dolly Winthrop
in Silas Marner was patiently tolerant of her husband,

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 193

"considering that men would be so/' and view-
ing the stronger sex "in the light of animals whom
it pleased Heaven to make troublesome like bulls
or turkey-cocks." This sensible woman knew that
if at times her husband was troublesome he had his
good qualities. On these she would accustom herself
to dwell.

A Scotch minister, being one day engaged in visiting
his flock, came to the door of a house where his
gentle tapping could not be heard for the noise of
contention within. After waiting a little he opened
the door and walked in, saying, with an authoritative
voice : " I should like to know who is the head of
this house?" "Weel, sir," said the husband and
father, "if ye sit doon a wee, we'll maybe be able
to tell ye, for we're just tryin1 to settle the point/'
Merely to settle this point some married people
are continually engaging in a tug of war instead
of pulling comfortably together. But what a mean
contest ! How much better it would be only to
strive who should love the other most ! To married
people especially are these words of Marcus Aurelius
applicable : " We are made for co-operation, like feet,
like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and
lower teeth. To acl against one another, then, is
contrary to nature."

That union is strength is forcibly, if not very
elegantly, illustrated by Erskine's description of a
lodging where he had passed the night. He said
that the fleas were so numerous and so ferocious
that if they had been but unanimous they would
have pulled him out of bed. If husband and wife
would be but unanimous they would be a match
against every enemy to their felicity. On the other
hand, how impossible it is for those who work
against each other to live together with any advan-
G tage or comfort. We all remember the illustration

194 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

of ^Esop. A charcoal-burner carried on his trade
in his own house. One day he met a friend, a
fuller, and entreated him to come and live with
him, saying that they should be far better neigh-
bours, and that their housekeeping expenses would
be lessened. The fuller replied, "The arrangement
is impossible as far as I am concerned, for whatever
I should whiten, you would immediately blacken again
with your charcoal."

One secret of pulling together is not to interfere
with what does not concern us. A man who can
trust his wife should no more meddle with her
home concerns than she should pester him with
questions about his business. He will never be
able to pull with her if he pokes over the weekly
bills, insists on knowing how much each thing is
per pound, and what he is going to have every
day for dinner. It is indeed almost a sine qua
nan of domestic felicity that paterfamilias should
be absent from home at least six hours in the day.
Jones asked his wife, "Why is a husband like dough?"
He expected she would give it up, and he was going to
tell her that it was because a woman needs him ; but
she said it was because he was hard to get off her
hands.

Of course, like every other good rule, this one
of non-intervention may be carried too far, as it
was by the studious man, who said, when a servant
told him that his house was on fire, " Go to your
mistress, you know I have no charge of house-
hold matters." No doubt occasions will arise
when a husband will be only too glad to take
counsel with his wife in business cares; while she
may have to remember all her life long, with grati-
tude and love, some season of sickness or afflic-
tion, when he filled his own place and hers
too, ashamed of no womanish task, and neither

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 195

irritated nor humiliated by ever such trivial household
cares.

"Parents and children seldom act in concert,
each child endeavours to appropriate the esteem
or fondness of the parents, and the parents, with
yet less temptation, betray each other to their
children; thus some place their confidence in the
father, and some in the mother, and by degrees
the house is filled with artifices and feuds." These
words point to a danger to be guarded against by
married people who desire to pull together. It
is sad when a child is not loved equally by both
its parents. In this case, however innocent and blessed
the little one may be, it is liable to become the
disturber of parental peace.

Perhaps the way Carlyle and his wife pulled
together is not so very uncommon. His mother
used to say of him that he was "gey ill to live
with," and Miss Welsh whom he married had a
fiery temper. When provoked she "was as hard
as a flint, with possibilities of dangerous sparks of
fire." The pair seem to have tormented each other,
but not half as much as each tormented hinX
and herself. They were too like each other,
suffering in the same way from nerves dis-
ordered, digestion impaired, excessive self-con-
sciousness, and the absence of children to take
their thoughts away from each other. They were,
in the fullest sense of the word, everything to each
other — both for good and evil, sole comforters, chief
tormentors. The proverb "111 to hae but waur to
want" was true of the Carlyles as of many another
couple. f

Sir David Baird and some other English officers,
being captured by Tippoo Saib, were confined for
some time in one of the dungeons of his palace
at Bangalore. When Sir David's mother heard

196 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

the news in Scotland, referring to the method in
which prisoners were chained together and to her
son's well-known irascible temper, she exclaimed :
"God pity the lad that's tied to our Da vie."
How much more to be pitied is he or she whom
matrimony has tied for life to a person with a bad
temper !

Over-particularity in trifles causes a great deal
of domestic discomfort. The husband or wife who,
to use a common phrase, wishes a thing to be "just
so," and not otherwise, is uncomfortable to pull with.
For any person to be thoroughly amiable and livable
with, there should be a little touch of untidiness and
unpreciseness, and indifference to small things. A
little spice — not too much — of the Irishman's spirit
who said, "If you can't take things asy, take them
as asy as you can."

There is no more beautiful quality than that
ideality which conceives and longs after perfection;
but if too exclusively cultivated it may drag down
rather than elevate its possessor. The faculty which
is ever conceiving and desiring something better
and more perfect must be modified in its action by
good sense, patience, and conscience, otherwise it
induces a morbid, discontented spirit, which courses
through the veins of individual and family life like
a subtle poison.

Exactingness is untrained ideality, and much
domestic misery is caused by it. A little bit of
conscience makes the exacting person sour. He
fusses, fumes, finds fault, and scolds because every-
thing is not perfect in an imperfect world. Much
more happy and good is he whose conceptions and
desire of excellence are equally strong, but in whom
there is a greater amount of discriminating common,
sense.

Most people can see what is faulty in themselves

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 197

and their surroundings; but while the dreamer
frets and wears himself out over the unattainable,
the happy, practical man is satisfied with what
can be attained. There was much wisdom in
the answer given by the principal of a large public
institution when complimented on his habitual cheer-
fulness amid a diversity of cares : " I've made
up my mind," he said, "to be satisfied when
things are done half as well as I would have
them."

Ideality often becomes an insidious mental and moral
disease, acting all the more subtlely from its alliance
with what is noblest in us.

The virtue of conscientiousness may turn into
the vice of censoriousness if misapplied. It was
the constant prayer of the great and good Bishop
Butler that he might be saved from what he
called "scrupulosity." Dr. Johnson used to admire
this wise sentence in Thomas 4 Kempis: "Be
not angry that you cannot make others as you
wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself
as you wish to be." Searching for domestic
happiness would not be as unsuccessful as it is with
some people if they were not continually finding
fault.

Jeremy Taylor impresses this fact by one of his
quaint illustrations: "The stags in the Greek
epigram, whose knees were clogged with frozen snow
upon the mountains, came down to the brooks of
the valleys, hoping to thaw their joints with the waters
of the stream; but there the frost overtook them,
and bound them fast in ice, till the young herdsmen
took them in their stronger snare. It is the
unhappy chance of many men; finding many incon-
veniences upon the mountains of single life, they
descend into the valleys of marriage to refresh their
troubles, and there they enter into fetters, and are

198 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

bound to sorrow by the cords of a man's or woman's
peevishness/'

The Psalmist says that " God maketh men to be of
one mind in a house. " Let husband and wife live near
Him, and He will enable them to avoid domestic strife,
which Cowper declares to be the ' * sorest ill of human
life."

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 199

CHAPTER XXIV.

NETS AND CAGES.

I think for a woman to fail to make and keep a
happy home is to be a " failure " in a truer sense than
to have failed to catch a husband.— FRANCES POWER
COBBB.

We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry. —

VlTTORIA COROMBONA.

WHEN Mr. Wilberforce was a candidate for Hull,
his sister, an amiable and witty young lady, offered
a new dress to each of the wives of those freemen
who voted for her brother. When saluted with " Miss
Wilberforce for ever I " she pleasantly observed,
"I thank you, gentlemen, but I cannot agree with
you, for really I do not wish to be Miss Wilberforce
for ever."

We do not blame Miss Wilberforce or any other
young lady for not wishing to be a " Miss M for ever ;
but we desire to point out in this chapter that all is not
done when the husband is gained.

Even in the happiest choice whom fav'ring Heaven
Has equal love and easy fortune given ;
Think not, the husband gained, that all is
The prize of happiness must still be won ;

200 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

And oft the careless find it to their cost ;
The lover in the husband may be lost ;
The graces might alone his heart allure ;
They and the virtues meeting must secure.

According to Dean Swift, "the reason why so
few marriages are happy is because young women
spend their time in making nets, not in making
cages." Certainly a bird in the hand is worth two
in the bush, and girls are quite justified in trying
in all ways, consistent with modesty and self-respect,
to net husbands. Still, she is the really fine woman
who can not merely net the affections of a husband
during the honeymoon, but who can cage and keep
them throughout a long married life. Only the
other day a man told me that after forty years of
married life he loved his wife almost better than
the day they were married. We are not told that
Alexander the Great, after conquering the world,
kept his conquest very long, but this wife kept her
conquest forty years. Woman in her time has been
called upon to endure a great deal of definition.
She has been described as " a good idea — spoiled ! "
This may be true of one who can only make nets,
but it certainly is not true of a cage-maker.
Always do—-
Her air, her smile, her motions, tell

Of womanly completeness ;
A music as of household songs
Is in her voice of sweetness.

Flowers spring to blossom where she walk*

The careful ways of duty ;
The hard stiff lines of life with her

Are flowing curvet of beauty.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 201

Men are often as easily caught as birds, but as
difficult to keep. If the wife cannot make her home
bright and happy, so that it shall be the cleanest,
sweetest, cheerfullest place that her husband can find
refuge in— -a retreat from the toils and troubles of the
outer world — then God help the poor man, for he is
virtually homeless !

In the home more than anywhere else order
is Heaven's first law. It is the duty of a wife to
sweetly order her cage so that it may be clean, neat,
and free from muddle. Method is the oil that makes
the wheels of the domestic machine run easily. The
mistress of a home who desires order, and the tran-
quillity that comes of order, must insist on the
application of method to every branch and department
of the household work. She must rise and breakfast
early and give her orders early. Doing much
before twelve o'clock gives her a command of the
day.

A friend of Robert Hall, the famous preacher,
once asked him regarding a lady of their acquaintance,
"Will she make a good wife for me?" "Well,"
replied Hall, "I can hardly say — I never lived with
her ! " This is the real test of happiness in married
life. It is one thing to see ladies on " dress " occa-
sions and when every effort is being made to please
them; it is quite another thing to see them amidst
the varied and often conflicting circumstances of
household life. Men may talk in raptures of youth
and beauty, wit and sprightliness ; but after seven
years of union not one of them is to be compared
to good family management which is seen at every
meal and felt every hour in the husband's purse.
In the Records of Later Life, Fanny Kemble (Mrs.
Butler), shortly after she had begun housekeeping
with a staff of six servants, writes from America
to a friend, " I have been reproaching myself, and

202 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

reproving others, and heartily regretting that, instead
of Italian and music, I had not learned a little domestic
economy, and how much bread, butter, flour, eggs,
milk, sugar, and meat ought to be consumed per
week by a family of eight persons." There is no
reason why she should not have learned all this, and
Italian and music as well.

Gradually it has come to be seen that practical
cookery, which might be classed under the head of
chemistry, is an excellent intellectual training, as it
teaches the application in daily life of knowledge
derived from a variety of branches of study. From
this point of view even sweet girl-graduates may take
pride in being good cooks, while as regards women
of the working classes, hardly anything drives their
husbands to drink so much as bad cookery and
irregular meals.

Leigh Hunt used to say that "the most fascinat-
ing women are those that can most enrich the ev$ry-
day moments of existence." If we are to believe
Mrs. Carlyle, who lived next door to the Hunts at
Chelsea, Mrs. Hunt did not do much in the way of
domestic economy to "enrich the everyday moments
of existence." "I told Mrs. Hunt, one day, I had
been very busy painting. ' What ? ' she asked ; ' is
it a portrait?' 'Oh, no,' I told her: 'something of
more importance— a large wardrobe.' She could not
imagine, she said, 'how I could have patience for
such things.' And so, having no patience for them
herself, what is the result? She is every other day
reduced to borrow my tumblers, my teacups ; even
a cupful of porridge, a few spoonfuls of tea, are
begged of me, because 'Missus has got company,
and happens to be out of the article'; in plain,
unadorned English, because 'missus' is the most
wretched of managers, and is often at the point
-teving not a copper in her purse. To see how they

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 203

live and waste here, it is a wonder the whole city
does not ' bankrape, and go out o' sicht * ; — flinging
platefuls of what they are pleased to denominate
'crusts' (that is, what I consider all the best of
the bread) into the ashpits ! I often say, with
honest self-congratulation, 'In Scotland we have no
such things as "crusts."' On the whole, though the
English ladies seem to have their wits more at their
finger-ends, and have a great advantage over me in
that respect, I never cease to be glad that I was
born on the other side of the Tweed, and that those
who are nearest and dearest to me are Scotch. . . .
Mrs. Hunt I shall soon be quite terminated with,
I foresee. She torments my life out with borrow-
ing. She actually borrowed one of the brass fenders
the other day, and I had difficulty in getting it out
of her hands ; irons, glasses, teacups, silver spoons
are in constant requisition; and when one sends for
them the whole number can never be found. Is it
not a shame to manage so, with eight guineas a week
to keep house on ! It makes me very indignant to
see all the waste that goes on around me, when I
am needing so much care and calculation to make
ends meet."

When Carlyle was working hard to support himself
and his wife by literature at the lonely farmhouse
which was their home, Mrs. Carlyle did all she could to
mitigate by good cookery the miseries which dyspepsia
inflicted upon him. She thus writes of her culinary
trials: "The bread, above all, brought from Dumfries,
' soured on his stomach ' (O Heaven !), and it was
plainly my duty as a Christian wife to bake at home ;
so I sent for Cobbett's Cottage Economy^ and fell to
work at a loaf of bread. But knowing nothing about
the process of fermentation or the heat of ovens, it
came to pass that my loaf got put into the oven at
this time that myself ought to have been put into bid)

ao4 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

and I remained the only person not asleep in a house
in the middle of a desert. One o'clock struck, and
then two, and then three ; and still I was sitting there
in an immense solitude, my whole body aching with
weariness, my heart aching with a sense of forlorn-
ness and degradation. That I, who had been so
petted at home, whose comfort had been studied by
everybody in the house, who had never been required
to do anything but cultivate my mind, should have to
pass all those hours of the night in watching a loaf of
bread — which mightn't turn out bread after all ! Such
thoughts maddened me, till I laid my head on the
table and sobbed aloud. It was then that some-
how the idea of Benvenuto Cellini sitting up all night
watching his Perseus in the furnace came into my
head, and suddenly I asked myself: * After all, in
the sight of the Upper Powers, what is the mighty
difference between a statue of Perseus and a loaf of
bread, so that each be the thing one's hand has found
to do? The man's determined will, his energy, his
patience, his resource, were the really admirable
things of which his statue of Perseus was the mere
chance expression. If he had been a woman living
at Craigenputtoch, with a dyspeptic husband, sixteen
miles from a baker, and he a bad one, all these same
qualities would have come out more fitly in a good loaf
of bread.1 I cannot express what consolation this germ
of an idea spread over my uncongenial life during the years
we lived at that savage place, where my two immediate
predecessors had gone mad, and the third had taken to
drink."

Though the life of that tragic muse Mrs. Siddons
was girded about with observance and worship from
the highest in the land, though her mind and
imagination were always employed in realising the
most glorious creations of the most glorious poets,
Mrs. Siddons in her home was at once the simplest

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 205

and the tenderest of women. She did a great deal
of the household work herself, and her grand friends,
when they called, would be met by her with a flat-
iron in her hand, or would find her seated studying
a new part, while, at the same time, she rocked the
cradle of her latest born, and knitted her husband's
stockings. When she went to the theatre she was
generally accompanied by one or more of her children,
and the little things would cling about her, holding
her hand or her dress, as she stood in the side scenes.
The fine ladies who petted her could not put one
grain of their fine ladyism into her. To the end of
her life she remained a proof of the not-generally-
believed fact that an artist can be, at the same
time, a most purely domestic woman. The same,
too, may be said of a mathematician, for the greatest
woman-mathematician of any age, Mary Somerville, was
renowned for her good housekeeping.

An American newspaper lately addressed the follow-
ing wise words to young women : " Learn to keep
house. If you would be a level-headed woman; if
you would have right instincts and profound views,
and that most subtle, graceful, and irresistible of all
things, womanly charm ; if you would make your pen,
your music, your accomplishments tell, and would
give them body, character, and life; if you would
be a woman of genuine power, and queen o'er all
the earth, iearn to keep house thoroughly and
practically. You see the world all awry, and are
consumed with a desire to set it right Must you
go on a mission to the heathen? Very well, but
learn to keep house first Begin reform, where all
true reform must begin, at the centre, and work
outwards; at the foundation, and work upwards.
What is the basis and centre of all earthly life? It is
the family, the home; these relations dictate and
control all others. There is nothing from which tJut

so6 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

distracted world is suffering so much to-day as for
want of thorough housekeeping and homemaking"

But a cage-making wife is much more than a
good cook and housekeeper. Indeed it is possible
for a wife to be too careful and cumbered about
these things. When such is the case she becomes
miserable and grumbles at a little dust or disorder
which the ordinary mortal does not see, just as a
fine musician is pained and made miserable at a
slight discord that is not noticed by less-trained ears.
Probably her husband wishes his house were less
perfectly kept, but more peaceful. A woman should
know when to change her role of housewife for that
of the loving friend and companion of her husband.
She should be able and willing to intelligently discuss
with him the particular political or social problem
that is to him of vital interest. We will all agree
with Dr. Johnson that a man of sense and education
should seek a suitable companion in a wife. " It was,"
he said, "a miserable thing when the conversation
could only be such as, whether the mutton should be
boiled or roast, and probably a dispute about that."
A " good and loyal wife takes upon her a share of
everything that concerns and interests her husband.
Whatever may be his work or even recreation, she
endeavours to learn enough about it to be able to
listen to him with interest if he speaks to her of it,
and to give him a sensible opinion if he asks for it.
In every matter she is helpful.

Women's lives are often very dull : but it would help
to make them otherwise if wives would sometimes think
over, during the hours when parted from their husbands,
a few little winning ways as surprises for them on their
return, either in the way of conversation, or of some
small change of dress, or any way their ingenuity would
have suggested in courting days. How little the lives
of men and women would be dull, if they thought of and

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 207

acted towards each other after marriage as they did
before it !

Certainly, it does a wife good to go out of her
cage Occasionally for amusement, although her deepest,
truest lhappiness may be found at home. She, quite
as much as her husband, requires change and recrea-
tion, but while this is true, she must never forget
that a life of pleasure is a life of pain, and that if
much of her time is spent in visiting and company,
anarchy and confusion at home must be the con-
sequence. "Never seek for amusement," says
Mr. Ruskin, "but be always ready to be amused.
The least thing has play in it — the slightest word wit,
when your hands are busy and your heart is free.
But if you make the aim of your life amusement,
the day will come when all the agonies of a pantomime
will not bring you an honest laugh."

Nothing renders a woman so agreeable to her husband
as good humour. It possesses the powers ascribed
to magic and imparts beauty to the plainest features.
On the other hand, the bright, sparkling girl, who
turns, after marriage, in her hours of privacy with
her husband, into the dull, silent, or grumbling wife
has no one to thank but herself if he is often absent
from his home.

Men hate nagging, and, indeed, husband -nagging
is almost as cruel as wife-beating. There are women
whose perpetual contentiousness is a moral reproduc-
tion of an Oriental torture, that drops water on you
every ten seconds. The butler of a certain Scottish
laird, who had been in the family a number of years,
at last resigned his situation because his lordship's
wife was always scolding him. " Oh ! " exclaimed
his master, "if that be all, ye've very little to com-
plain of." "Perhaps so," replied the butler; "but
I have decided in my own mind to put up with it
no longer." "Go, then," said his lordship; "and be

2o8 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED

thankful for the rest of your life that ye're not married
to her."

The methods which women adopt in manag-
ing husbands vary with the characters of the
individuals to be guided. In illustration of this
here is a short story. Two women, Mrs. A. and
Mrs. B., were talking together one day with some
friends over a cup of tea, when the subject of the
management of husbands came up. Each of these
two wives boasted that she could make her husband
do exactly what she liked. A spinster who was
present, Miss C., denied the truth of this statement,
and this led to high words, in the course of which
it was agreed that each wife should prove her
power by making her husband drive her on a
particular afternoon in a hired carriage to an
appointed place, which we will call Edmonton. The
test was considered a good one, because the two
husbands were individuals inclined to economy, who
in the ordinary course of events would never think of
hiring a carriage or driving anywhere, excepting in
a 'bus to the City. Mrs. A. was strong-minded,
determined woman, and Mr. A. was meek and
gentle; no one doubted, therefore, that Mrs. A. could
get what she wanted. But Mr. B. was an argu-
mentative, contradictory, wilful, and pugnacious
individual, while Mrs. B. was sweet and good. It
was expected that Mrs. B. would have to own
herself defeated. However, the day arrived and the
hour, the unbelieving spinster repaired to the spot,
and up drove the two husbands with their wives
sitting in state by their sides. "How did you
manage it?" said Miss C. "Oh," said Mrs. A.,
"I simply said to my husband, 'Mr. A., I wish you
to hire a carriage and drive me to Edmonton/ He

said, 'Very well, my dear, but I ,' and here

1 am*" " And how did you manage it, Mrs. B, ? "

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 209

Mrs. B. was unwilling to confess, but at length
she was induced to do so. " I said to my husband,
' I think Mr. and Mrs. A. are very extravagant : they
are going to hire a carriage and pair to-morrow and drive
to Edmonton.' * Why should they not do so if they like
it ? ' said Mr. B. * Oh, no reason at all, my dear, if you
think it right, and if they can afford it ; but we could
not do anything of that kind, of course. Besides, I
fancy Mr. A. is more accustomed to driving than you
are.' ' A. is not at all more accustomed to it than I am,'
said Mr. B., 'and I can afford it quite as well as he.
Indeed, I will prove that I can and will, for 1 will hire
a carriage and drive there at the same time/ 'Very
well, my dear, if you think so ; but I should not like to
go with you, I should feel so ashamed.' * Then I wish
you to go with me, Mrs. B. ; I insist upon your accom-
panying me.' So," said quiet little Mrs. B., " that is the
way I manage Mr. B."

Neither of these women is to be congratulated on her
method of management. Each despised her husband,
and what sort of basis is scorn for happiness in married
life ? If a man's own wife does not believe in him, and
look up to him, and admire him, and like him better
than any one else, poor man, who else will ? If he is
not king at home, where is he king ?

Once upon a time, according to an old heathen legend,
the gods and goddesses were assembled together, and
were talking over matters celestial, when one of the
company, who was of an inquiring mind, said, " What
arc the people who live on the earth Tike ? " No one knew.
One or two guesses were made, but every one knew that
they were only guesses. At last an enterprising little
goddess suggested that a special messenger should be
sent to visit the earth, to make inquiries, and to bring
back information concerning the inhabitants thereof.
OS the messenger went. On his return, the gods and
goddesses once more assembled, and every one was very

2io HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

anxious to hear the result of this mission. " Well," said
Jove, who constituted himself speaker on the occasion,
" what have you learnt ? What are the people of the
earth like?" " They are very curious people/* said the
traveller. "They have no character of their own, but
they become what others think them. If you think
them cruel, they act cruelly; if you think them true,
they may be relied on ; if you think them false, they lie
and steal; if you believe them to be kind, they are
amiability itself.'*

May not the secret of how to manage a husband be
found in this small fable ? A woman has power over her
husband (that is, legitimate and reasonable power, not
power to make him hire a carriage, but power to make
him kind, true, and persevering) in proportion to her
belief in him. She is never so helpless with regard to
him as when she has lost faith in him herself.

Milton tells us that a good wife is " heaven's last, best
gift to man ; " but what constitutes a good wife ? Purity
of thought and feeling, a generous, cheerful temper,
a disposition ready to forgive, patience, a high sense of
duty, a cultivated mind, and a natural grace of manner.
She should be able to govern her household with gentle
resolution, and to take an intelligent interest in her
husband's pursuits. She should have a clear understand-
ing, and " all the firmness that does not exclude delicacy,"
and "all the softness that does not imply weakness."
" Her beauty, like the rose it resembleth, shall retain its
sweetness when its bloom is withered. Her hand seeketh
employment; her foot delighteth not in gadding about.
She is clothed with neatness ; she is fed with temperance.
On her tongue dwelleth music ; the sweetness of honey
floweth from her lips. Her eye speaketh softness and
love ; but discretion, with a sceptre, sitteth on her brow.
She presideth in the house, and there is peace ; she
commandeth with judgment, and is obeyed. She ariseth
in the morning, she considers her affairs, and appointeth

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 211

to every one their proper business. The prudence of
her management is an honour to her husband ; and he
heareth her praise with a secret delight. Happy is the
man that hath made her his wife; happy is the child
that calleth her mother."

The married man must have been blessed with a cage-
making wife like this who defined woman as " An essay
on goodness and grace, in one volume, elegantly bound."
Although it may seem a little expensive, every man
should have a copy.

212 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

CHAPTER XXV.

HUSBANDS HAVE DUTIES TOO.

A good wife is the gift of a good God, and the workman-
ship of a good husband. — Proverb.

My dear sir, mind your studies, mind your business,
make your lady happy, and be a good Christian.

Dr. Johnson's Advice to BoswelL

A HIGHLAND horse-dealer, who lately effected a
sale, was offered a bottle of porter to confess the
animal's failings. The bottle was drunk, and he
then said the horse had but two faults. When
turned loose in the field he was "bad to catch,"
and he was "of no use when caught." Many
a poor woman might say the same of her husband.
She had to make many nets, for he was "bad
to catch," and when caught — well, he forgot that
husbands hare duties as well as wives. Some
men can neither do without wives nor with them;
they are wretched alone, in what is called single
blessedness, and they make their homes miserable
when they get married; they are like the dog, which
could not bear to be loose, and howled when it was
tied up.

There are men with whom all the pleasure of love
exists in its pursuit, and not in its possession. When
a woman marries one of this class, he seems almost to

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 213

despise her from that day. Having got her into his
power he begins to bully her.

If it be true that there are more people married
than keep good houses, husbands are quite as much
to blame as wives. The proverb tells us that
good wives and good plantations are made by
good husbands. In the last chapter we ventured
to suggest that women should make cages as
well as nets; but all their efforts will be in vain
if they have ill-birds who foul their own nests. To
complete the subject, therefore, something must be
said about the behaviour of the male bird when caught
and caged.

First of all he should sing and not cry. How
many women are there who suffer from the want of
a kindly love, a sweet appreciation of their goodness
and their self-sacrifice ! How often will wives do
tender and loving offices, adorn the home with
flowers, making it as neat as the nest of a bird;
dress their persons with elegance, and their faces
with smiles, and find as a reward for this the stolid
indifference of the block or the stupid insensibility
of the lower animal ! " She was a woman/' wrote
one who knew her sex well ; " a woman down to the
very tips of her finger-nails, and what she wanted was
praise from the lips that she loved. Do you ask what
that meant? Did she want gold, or dress, or power?
No; all she wanted was that which will buy us all,
and which so few of us ever get — in a word, it was
Love."

Priscilla Lammeter, in Silas Marner, well understood
the selfish way many husbands fall into of relieving
their feelings :

" There's nothing kills a man so soon as
having nobody to find fault with but himself. It's
a deal the best way o' being master to let some-
body else do the ordering, and keep the blaming in

2i4 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

your own hands. It 'ud save many a man a stroke, I
believe."

"If he would only be satisfied ! " Mrs. Carlyle
used sometimes to complain of Carlyle, "but I have
had to learn that when he does not find fault he is
pleased, and that has to content me." On one
occasion when Carlyle was away from home,
Mrs. Carlyle described her charwoman sort of work
to get all in perfect order for her husband's arrival;
and when all was complete — his dinner ready, his
arm-chair in its usual attitude, his pipe and tobacco
prepared, all looking as comfortable as possible —
Mrs. C. sat down at last to rest, and to expect him
with a quiet mind. He arrived; and "after he had
just greeted me, what do you think he did? He
walked to the window and shook it, and asked
'Where's the wedge of the window?1 and until we
had found that blessed wedge nothing would content
him. He said the window would rattle and spoil
all." When a great and good man gives such
inordinate prominence to trivial worries, how intoler-
able to live with must be the baser sort, who scarcely
know the meaning of self-control !

Some men may deserve rewards for distinguished
service in action; but they certainly do not for distin-
guished service in passion or suffering. In this respect
they are far less brave than women.

The fault of many husbands is not the absence of
love, but their failure to express it in their daily lives,
and the self -absorption which prevents them from
knowing that their wives want something more than
they give them. They do not pay that attention
to little things on which so much of a woman's
happiness depends.

" Instead of love being the occasion of all the misery
of this world (as is sung by fantastic bards), the misery
of this world is occasioned by there not being love

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 215

enough." Certain it is, that as time goes on married
life is not usually found to want less love, but more ;
not less expression of love, but more. Caroline Perthes,
writing to her husband, is not content he should love
her, but wishes the phlegmatic German would sometimes
tell her so.

Husbands would be more considerate and less
exacting if they realised the fact that a wife's work is
never done. I have heard more than one lady remark
that the greatest pleasure of hotel life, and of a visit
to one's friends, is to be able to sit down to dinner
without a knowledge of what is coming in the various
courses.

The wife whose sympathy is always ready for
her husband's out-of-door difficulties naturally expects
that he should at least try to understand her house-
keeping troubles. How many they are is known
to every one who has "run" a house for even
a short time.

A woman may have much theoretical knowledge,
but this will not prevent unlooked-for obstacles
from arising, Annoyances caused by human frailty
and the working of natural agents beset every
practical housekeeper.

It is the unexpected that constantly happens, and
the daily girding up to meet the emergencies of the
hour is the task of every wife who seeks to make her
home a comfortable, habitable abode. It is work-
real, earnest work, quite as hard in its way as the
husband's.

Husbands should know the value and- the diffi-
culty of the work of their wives, and should never
forget that a little help is worth a great deal of fault-
finding.

The husband's affection must never be merged
in an overweening conceit of his authority. His
rule must be the rule of reason and kindness, not

216 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

of severity and caprice. He is the houseband and
should bind all together like a corner-stone, but not
crush everything like a millstone. Jeremy Taylor
says :

" The dominion of a man over his wife is no
other than as the soul rules the body; for which it
takes mighty care, and uses it with a delicate
tenderness, and cares for it in all contingencies, and
watches to keep it from all evils, and studies to
make for it fair provisions, and very often is led
by its inclinations and desires, and does never con-
tradict its appetites but when they are evil, and then
also not without some trouble and sorrow; and its
government comes only to this, it furnishes the body
with light and understanding; and the body furnishes
the soul with hands and feet ; the soul governs, because
the body cannot else be happy ; but the government is
no other than provision^ as a nurse governs a child,
when she causes him to eat, and to be warm, and dry,
and quiet."

It sometimes happens that she who ought to
have most influence on her husband's mind has least.
A man will frequently take the advice of a stranger
who cares not for him, in preference to the cordial
and sensible opinion of his own wife. Consideration
of the domestic evils such a line of conduct is
calculated to produce ought to prevent its adoption.
Besides, there is in woman an intuitive quickness,
a penetration, and a foresight, that make her advice
very valuable. " If I was making up a plan of
consequence," said Lord Bolingbroke, " I should
like first to consult with a, sensible woman." Many
a man has been ruined by professed friends, because
when his wife, with a woman's quick detection of
character, saw through them and urged him to give
them up, he would not do so. And if a wife is the
partner of her husband's cares, surely she ought

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 217

also to be the companion of his pleasures. There
are selfish husbands who go about amusing themselves ;
but in reference to their wives they seem to be of
the same opinion as the ancient philosopher, who
only approved of women leaving home three times
in their lives — to be baptized, married, and buried !
Does it never occur to such Egyptian taskmasters
that all work and no play is quite as bad for women
as for men, and that the wife who makes her cage
comfortable should occasionally be offered and even
urged to take a little amusement? I know of one
wife who struck under such treatment. Whenever
her husband spent his money and time too freely
away from home, she used to take her child and go
for a little excursion, which of course cost money.
If he gave more " drinks " than he could afford to
himself and to his club - companions, she used to
frighten him into good behaviour by ordering a bottle
of champagne for herself. Giving in this way a Roland
for every Oliver, this really good wife soon brought
her husband to see that his selfishness was a losing
game.

Cobbett protests against a husband getting to like
his club, or indeed any house, better than his own.
When absent from necessity, there is no wound given
to the heart of the wife ; she concludes that her
husband would be with her if he could, and that
satisfies. Yet in these cases her feelings ought to be
consulted as much as possible; she ought to be
apprised of the probable duration of the absence, and
of the time of return.

And what Cobbett preached upon this text he
himself practised. He and a friend called Finnerty
were dining with a mutual friend. At eleven o'clock
Cobbett said to the host, "'We must go; my wife
will be frightened.' « You do not mean to go home
to-night,' was the reply. I told him I did ; and then

2i8 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED,

sent my son, who was with us, to order out the post-
chaise. We had twenty -three miles to go, during
which we debated the question whether Mrs. Cobbett
would be up to receive us, I contending for the
affirmative and he for the negative. She was up, and
had a nice fire for us to sit down at. She had not
committed the matter to a servant; her servants and
children were all in bed; and she was up, to perform
the duty of receiving her husband and his friend.
'You did not expect him?' said Finnerty. 'To be
sure I did/ said she; 'he never disappointed me in
his life. '"

We ourselves heard a wife saying to her husband
only the other day, "I would rather you had done
that than given me ten pounds." What had he
done? Only put himself out a little to return
home at the exact hour he had appointed to be with
her. That the little attention gratified her so much
will not seem strange to any one who has observed
the power of little things in imparting either pleasure
or pain.

A kind husband, when he goes from home,
generally brings back some little present to his wife.
Attentions like this keep fresh that element of romance
which should never be entirely absent from married
life. They remind the now staid, but still impressible
matron, of the days of her maiden power, when
a cold look from her brought winter into the room,
and when the faintest wish would have sent a certain
young gentleman on a walk of a dozen miles for
the first violets. Yes, now and then give your
wife a present — a real present, which, without
involving undue expense, is good enough to compel
a certain sacrifice, and suitable enough to make
her cheek flush with delight at seeing that
just as the bride was dearer than the sweet-
heart, the wife is yet dearer than the bride. There

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 219

is quite as much human nature in a wife as in a
husband (men forget this), and a little tender petting
does her a great deal of good, and may even be better
than presents.

What a model husband and father Macaulay
would have been if he had married ! His sister,
Lady Trevelyan, says that "those who did not
know him at home never knew him in his most
brilliant, witty, and fertile vein." He was life and
sunshine to young and old in the sombre house in
Great Ormond Street, where the forlorn old father,
like a blighted oak, lingered on in leafless decay,
reading one long sermon to his family on Sunday
afternoons, and another long sermon on Sunday
evenings — "where Sunday walking for walking's
sake was never allowed, and even going to a
distant church was discouraged." Through this
Puritanic gloom Macaulay shot like a sunbeam,
and turned it into a fairy scene of innocent laughter
and mirth. Against Macaulay, the author, severe
things may be said; but as to his conduct in his
own home — as a son, as a brother, and an uncle —
it is only the barest justice to say that he appears
to have touched the furthest verge of human virtue,
sweetness, and generosity. His thinking was often,
if not generally, pitched in what we must call a
low key, but his action might put the very saints to
shame. He reversed a practice too common among
men of genius, who are often careful to display all
their shining and attractive qualities to the outside
world, and keep for home consumption their meanness,
selfishness, and ill-temper. Macaulay struck no heroic
attitude of benevolence, magnanimity, and aspiration
before the world — rather the opposite ; but in the circle
of his home affections he practised those virtues without
letting his right hand know what was done by his left.

Writing to his oldest and dearest friend in

220 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

the first days of her overwhelming grief, her late
Majesty Queen Victoria described the Prince
Consort as having been to her " husband, father,
lover, master, friend, adviser, and guide." There
could scarcely be a better description of what a husband
ought to be.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 221

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE HEALTH OF THE FAMILY.

Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words — health, peace, and competence.
But Health consists with temperance alone,
And Peace, O Virtue, peace is all thy own.

POPE.

Better to hunt in fields for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.

DRYDEN.

An eminent physician gave four rules for the pre-
servation of health. When he died, his books were
sold ; one, which was said to contain very valuable
precepts of health, but which the bidders were not
permitted to open, sold at a high price. When the
purchaser got it home he hastily proceeded to examine
it, and was much disappointed at finding that it con*
tained nothing more than four simple rules. He thought
he had thrown his money away, but on further con-
sideration he was induced to put the rules in practice.
By doing so he was restored to a state of health to
which he had long been a stranger. He often spoke of
the old physician's book as the cheapest and most valu-
able purchase he ever made in his life. The rules were
these: Keep the head cool; Keep the feet warm; Take
a light supper; Rise earfy.

222 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

THE old word for " holy " in the German language
also means "healthy," and, in our own, "hale,"
"whole," and "holy" are from the same root.
Carlyle says that " you could not get any better
definition of what 'holy' really is than 'healthy —
completely healthy.'" Mens sana in corpore sano.
There is no kind of achievement you could make
in the world that is equal to perfect health. What
are nuggets and millions? The French financier
said, " Alas ! why is there no sleep to be sold ? "
Sleep was not in the market at any quotation.

What boots it to have attained wealth, if the
wealth is accompanied by ceaseless ailments? What
is the worth of distinction, if it has brought
hypochondria with it? Surely no one needs telling
that a good digestion, a bounding pulse, and high
spirits, are elements of happiness which no external
advantages can out-balance. Chronic bodily disorder
casts a gloom over the brightest prospects; while
the vivacity of strong health gilds even misfortune.
Health is not merely freedom from bodily pain; it
is the capability of receiving pleasure from all sur-
rounding things, and from the employment of all
our faculties. It need scarcely be said that without
this capability even marriage cannot make us happy.
Indeed, without a fair share of health to start
with, people are not justified in taking upon themselves
the responsibilities of matrimony, and running the
risk of introducing into the world weak children
that may be said to be damned rather than born
into it.

It has been remarked that the first requisite to
success in life is to be a good animal. Will it seem
shockingly unpoetical to suggest that this is also a
very important element of success in marriage?
Certainly beauty has great power in retaining as
well as in gaining affection, and health is a condition

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 223

of beauty. A clear complexion and laughing eyes,
a supple and rounded form, and a face unmarked
by wrinkles of pain or peevishness are the results of
vigour of constitution.

Overflowing health produces good humour, and
we all know how important that is to matrimonial
felicity. I once knew an old lady who used to
say that it was a duty to sometimes take medicine
for the sake of one's friends. She was thinking
of the effect of dyspepsia, congested liver, and
other forms of ill-health upon our tempers. The
chief misery of dyspepsia is that it is not merely
pain, but pain which affects the intellect and feelings
alike; in Carlyle's vivid words: " Every window of
your feeling, even of your intellect, as it were, begrimed
and mud - bespattered, so that no pure ray can
enter ; a whole drug-shop in your inwards ; the fore-
done soul drowning slowly in the quagmires of
disgust."

Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks of a man in the
clothing business with an impressible temperament
who let a customer "slip through his fingers one
day without fitting him with a new garment. / Ah ! '
said he to a friend of mine, who was standing
by, 'if it hadn't been for that confounded headache
of mine this morning, I'd have had a coat on that
man, in spite of himself, before he left the store.'
A passing throb only; but it deranged the nice
mechanism required to persuade the accidental
human being, x, into a given piece of broad-
cloth, a."

How many more happy days would a husband and
wife spend together were it not for confounded head-
aches which cause foolish, bitter words to be spoken.
If a man cannot do business when the nice mechanism
of his body is deranged, neither can he be gentle and
kind in the family circle. This is what Dr. Johnson

224 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

meant when he said that a man is a villain when
sick.

" Smelfungus," says Sterne, " had been the
grand tour, and had seen nothing to admire; all
was barren from Dan to Beersheba; and when I
met him he fell foul of the Venus de Medici;
and abused her ladyship like a common fish-fag.
'I will tell it,' cried he, 'I will tell it to the
world!' 'You had better,' said Sterne, 'tell it to
your physician.' " So too when a man falls foul of
his wife, and abuses her ladyship like a common fish-
fag because his liver is out of order, he had better go
to a physician and take every means of clearing his
clouded temper.

How much a husband can do by sympathy
and kindness for a sick wife! Mrs. Carlyle used
to say, "The very least attention from Carlyle
just glorifies me. When I have one of my
headaches, and the sensation of red-hot knitting-
needles darting into my brain, Carlyle's way of
expressing sympathy is to rest a heavy hand on
the top of my head, and keep it there in perfect
silence,, for several seconds, so that although I could
scream with nervous agony, I sit like a martyr,
smiling with joy at such a proof of profound
pity from him.1' The truth is that happiness is the
most powerful of tonics. By accelerating the
circulation of the blood, it facilitates the per-
formance of every function ; and so tends alike to
increase health when it exists, and to restore it when
it has been lost.

If acts of kindness from a husband are necessary
in all cases, they are especially so in cases of his
wife's illness, from whatever cause arising, and
most of all when there is a prospect of her
becoming a mother. This is the time for him to
show care, watchful tenderness, attention to all her

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 225

wishes, and anxious efforts to quiet her fears. Any
agitation or fatigue at such times may cause the
remaining years of her life to be years of pain and
weakness. If he value happiness in married life
and would escape bitter self-reproach, the husband
will be very careful of his wife when in this con-
dition. And it is the duty of the young wife, on
her part, to take care of her own health, because of
the manner in which hers will affect the health of
her expected child. And as the moral and mental
nature of the child is scarcely less dependent on
her than the physical, she should cherish only such
mental frames and dispositions as she would like to
see reproduced in her child. How much her husband
can help or hinder her in doing so ! Then when the
child is born she ought if possible to give it the
food which nature provides and which is its birthright.
No other is so congenial, and the consequences of
unnatural methods of feeding are sometimes most
injurious to the bodies and minds of children.

In these hard times of great competition in every kind
of business, it is a sad fact that many men have to over-
work themselves, or at least fancy they have, in order
to get a living for their families. But there are others
who kill themselves by overwork and over-anxiety, for
what? To amass more money than they can well spend,
or to catch the soap-bubble called fame —

And all to leave what with his tact he won,
To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son.

Alas ! that such men never think of His considerate
words to His disciples who was the great Physician
of the body as well as of the soul — " Come ye apart,
and rest awhile." If they did they would be able to
show to their friends at home what the Lord had
done for them. Rest to their overstrung nerves would

226 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

make them less peevish, discontented, and generally
disagreeable.

More open-air amusements, and more indoor gaiety,
would save a great many failing brains and enfeebled
hearts.

Of course health may be impaired quite as much by
doing too little work as by doing too much. This truth
was enforced by Thackeray, when, addressing a medical
friend, he exclaimed, " Doctor, there is not in the whole
of your pharmacopoeia so sovereign a remedy as hard
work." All depends upon the temperament and con-
stitution. What kills one man cures another. General
Sir Charles Napier, who was not physically a strong
man, declared that for the first time he had discovered
what total immunity from " malaise " meant when he
took to working seventeen hours a day at Cephalonia, as
acting Governor or Commissioner of the Ionian Islands.

Not all but by far the largest part of the cure of
nervous depression re^lfc* with the patient. Change,
exercise, fresh air, diet, tonics — all these together will
not cure any one who gives up and gives way.

Above all, we should try to be cheerful. A clerical
friend, at a celebrated watering-place, met a lady who
seemed hovering on the brink of the grave. Her cheeks
were hollow and wan, her manner listless, her step
languid, and her brow wore the severe contraction so
indicative both of mental and physical suffering, so that
she was to all observers an object of sincere pity. Some
years afterwards he encountered this same lady ; but so
bright, and fresh, and youthful, so full of beautiful buoy-
ancy, and so joyous in expression, that hs questioned the
lady if he had not deceived himself with regard to identity.
" Is it possible," said he, " that I see before me Mrs. B.
who presented such a doleful appearance at the Springs
several years ago?" "The very same." "And pray
tell me the secret of your cure. What means did you
use to attain to such vigour of mind and body, to such

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 227

cheerfulness and rejuvenation ? " "A very simple
remedy/' returned she, with a beaming face; " I stopped
worrying and began to laugh ; that was all."

We would call the attention of heads of families to the
following mistakes which the Sanitary Record lately
enumerated : " It is a mistake to labour when you are
not in a fit condition to do so. To think that the more
a person eats the healthier and stronger he will become.
To go to bed at midnight and rise at daybreak, and
imagine that every hour taken from sleep is an hour
gained. To imagine that if a little work or exercise is
good, violent or prolonged exercise is better. To con-
clude that the smallest room in the house is large
enough to sleep in. To eat as if you only had a minute
to finish the meal in, or to eat without an appetite, or
continue after it, has been satisfied, merely to satisfy the
taste. To believe that children can do as much work
as grown people, and that the more hours they study
the more they learn. To imagine that whatever remedy
causes one to feel immediately better (as alcoholic
stimulants) is good for the system, without regard to
the after-effects. To take off proper clothing out of
season because you have become heated. To sleep
exposed to a direct draught in any season. To think
that any nostrum or patent medicine is a specific for all
the diseases flesh is heir to."

There are few things more important to health than
the due adjustment of play and work. The school at
which a boy ten years of age is made to work at his
tasks for the same time as a lad of sixteen ought to be
avoided by all parents. If health is to be preserved in
early youth, the child must be treated on the same
principle as a foal would be. He, or she, must be
allowed to a great extent to " run wild," and " lessons "
must be carefully graduated to the bodily powers.

Those mothers who are inclined to dose their children
too much should be reminded that it was during the

228 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED

days when physic flourished in the nursery that the
greatest amount of disease was found. It is not by
medicine, but by acting in accordance with natural laws,
that health of body and health of mind and morals can
be secured at home. Without a knowledge of such
laws, the mother's love too often finds its recompense
only in the child's coffin.

In the management of their children's health some
mothers are guided by everybody and everything except
by Nature herself. And yet the child's healthy instincts
are what alone should be followed.

Sir Samuel Garth, physician to George I., was a
member of the Kit-Kat Club. Coming to the club one
night, he said he must soon be gone, having many
patients to attend ; but some good wine being produced,
he forgot them. Sir Richard Steele was of the party,
and reminded him of the visits he had to pay. Garth
pulled out his list, which amounted to fifteen, and said,
" It's no great matter whether I see them to-night or
not ; for nine of them, have such bad constitutions that
all the physicians in the world can't save them ; and
the other six have such good constitutions that all the
physicians in the world can't kill them."

Probably the carelessness of many people about their
health may be explained in the same way. They think
either that their constitutions are so good that nothing
can injure them or else that they are so bad that nothing
can make them better. And often it is a bottle of wine
or some other indulgence of appetite that keeps health
away. We have heard of a well-known character who,
having had many severe attacks of gout, and who,
getting into years, and having a cellar of old port wine,
upon which he drew somewhat considerably, was advised
by his physician to give up the port, and for the future
to drink a certain thin claret not very expensive. Said
the gentleman in reply to this suggestion : "I prefer my
gout with my port, to being cured of my gout with that

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 229

claret of yours ! " Of a delicate man who would not
control his appetite it was said, "One of his passions
which he will not resist is for a particular dish, pungent,
savoury, and multifarious, which sends him almost every
night into Tartarus." Talking of the bad effects of late
hours, Sydney Smith said of a distinguished diner-out
that it would be written on his tomb, " He dined late."
" And died early," added Luttrell.

Such people ought to be told that in playing tricks
with their health they are committing a very great sin.
" Perhaps," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, " nothing will
so much hasten the time when body and mind will both
be adequately cared for, as a diffusion of the belief
that the preservation of health is a duty. Few seem
conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality.
Men's habitual words and acts imply the idea that they
are at liberty to treat their bodies as they please. Dis-
orders entailed by disobedience to Nature's dictates,
they regard simply as grievances, not as the effects of a
conduct more or less flagitious. Though the evil conse-
quences inflicted on their dependents, and on future
generations, are often as great as those caused by
crime ; yet they do not think themselves in any degree
criminal. It is true that, in the case of drunkenness,
the viciousness of a bodily transgression is recognised ;
but none appear to infer that, if this bodily transgression
is vicious, so too is every bodily transgression. The
fact is, that all breaches of the laws of health are
physical sins"

Certainly there are many great sufferers who are not
responsible for their ailments, and sometimes they teach
lessons of patience and resignation so well in the world
and in their families, that their work is quite as valuable
as that of the active and healthy. Robert Hall, being
troubled with an acute disease which sometimes caused
him to roll on the floor with agony, would rise therefrom,
wiping from his brow the drops of sweat which the pain

230 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

had caused, and, trembling from the conflict, ask, " But
I did not complain — I did not cry out much, did I ? "

Sydney Smith may have dined out more than was
good for his health, but he never allowed infirmities to
sour his temper. At the end of a letter to an old friend
he adds playfully, " I have gout, asthma, and seven
other maladies, but am otherwise very well." For the
sake of domestic happiness let us preserve our health ;
but when we do get ill we should endeavour to bear it
in this cheerful spirit.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED 231

CHAPTER XXVII.

LOVE SURVIVING MARRIAGE.

Thou leanest thy true heart on mine,

And bravely bearest up !
Aye mingling Love's most precious wine

In life's most bitter cup !
And evermore the circling hours

New gifts of glory bring ;
We live and love like happy flowers,

All in our fairy ring.

We have known a many sorrows, sweet I

We have wept a many tears,
And after trod with trembling feet

Our pilgrimage of years.
But when our sky grew dark and wild,

All closelier did we cling ;
Clouds broke to beauty as you smiled,

Peace crowned our fairy ring.

MASSEY.

MARRIAGE is sometimes said to be the door that leads
deluded mortals back to earth ; but this need not and
ought not to be the case. Writing to his wife from the
seaside, where he had gone in search of health, Kingsley
said : " This place is perfect ; but it seems a dream and

232 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

imperfect without you. Blessed be God for the rest,
though I never before felt the loneliness of being without
the beloved being whose every look and word and
motion are the keynotes of my life. People talk of love
ending at the altar. . . . Fools ! "

Of course the enthusiastic tempestuous love of courting
days will not as a rule remain. A married couple soon
get to feel towards each other very much as two chums
at college, or two partners in a business who are at the
same time old and well-tried friends. Young married
people often think that those who have been in the holy
state of matrimony twenty or thirty years longer than
themselves are very prosy, unromantic, and by no means
perfect examples of what married people ought to be.
We would remind persons manifesting this newly-married
intolerance of what an old minister of the Church of
Scotland once said to a young Scotch Dissenter who
was finding many faults— " When your lum (chimney)
has reeked as long as ours perhaps it wiU have as much
soot."

"There is real love just as there are real ghosts;
every person speaks of it ; few persons have seen it.H
This cynical remark of Rochefoucauld is certainly not
true in reference to love before marriage, and the existence
of love even after it rests on far better evidence than the
existence of ghosts. I have never seen a ghost, but I
have seen love surviving matrimony, and I have read
amongst very many other instances the following.

Old Robert Burton relates several cases of more than
lovers' love existing between husband and wife. He
tells us of women who have died to save their husbands,
and of a man who, when his wife was carried away by
Mauritanian pirates, became a galley-slave in order to
be near her. Of a certain Rubenius Celer he says that
he " would needs have it engraven on his tomb that he
had led his life with Ennea, his dear wife, forty-three
years and eight months, and never fell out." After

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 233

twenty-eight years' experience, Faraday spoke of his
marriage as an event which more than any other had
contributed to. his earthly happiness and healthy state
of mind." For forty-six years the union continued un-
broken ; the love of the old man remaining as fresh, as
earnest, and as heart-whole, as in the days of his youth.
Another man of science, James Nasmyth, the inventor
of the steam-hammer, had a similar happy experience.
" Forty-two years of married life finds us the same
devoted 'cronies' that we were at the beginning."
Dr. Arnold often dwelt upon "the rare, the unbroken,
the almost awful happiness" of his domestic life, and
carried the first feelings of enthusiastic love and watchful
care through twenty-two years of wedded life.

There are such things as love-letters between married
people. Here are two extracts from one written by
Caroline Perthes to her absent husband : " I have just
looked out into the night, and thought of thee. It is a
glorious night, and the stars are glittering above me, and
if in thy carriage 'one appears to thee brighter than the
rest, think that it showers down upon thee love and
kindness from me, and no sadness, for I am not now
unhappy when you are absent. Yet I am certain that
this does not proceed from any diminution of affection.
If I could only show how I feel towards you, it would
give you joy. After all I may say or write, it is still
unexpressed, and far short of the living love which I
carry in my heart. If you could apprehend me without
words, you would understand me better. The children
do their best, but you are always the same, and have
ever the first place in my heart. Thank God, my
Perthes, neither time nor circumstances can ever affect
my love to you ; my affection knows neither youth nor
age, and is eternal."

If love never survived matrimony would Mrs. Carlyle
have written a letter like the following which she did to
a friend who made a special effort to console her soon

234 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED,

after the death of her mother ? — " Only think of my
husband, too, having given me a little present I he who
never attends to such nonsenses as birthdays, and who
dislikes nothing in the world so much as going into a
shop to buy anything, even his own trousers and coats ;
so that, to the consternation of cockney tailors, I am
obliged to go about them. Well, he actually risked
himself in a jeweller's shop, and bought me a very nice
smelling-bottle ! I cannot tell you how wae his little
gift made me, as well as glad ; it was the first thing of
the kind he ever gave me in his life. In great matters
he is always kind and considerate; but these little
attentions, which we women attach so much importance
to, he was never in the habit of rendering to any one ;
his upbringing, and the severe turn of mind he has
from nature, had alike indisposed him towards them.
And now the desire to replace to me the irreplaceable
makes him as good in little things as he used to be in
great.1'

Carlyle never forgot her birthday afterwards. Onqe
she thought that he had, and she told the story of
her mistake and its correction thus : " Oh ! my dear
husband, fortune has played me such a cruel trick
this day ! and I do not even feel any resentment
against fortune for the suffocating misery of the last
two hours, I know always, when I seem to you
most exacting, that whatever happens to me is
nothing like so bad, as I deserve. But you shall
hear how it was. Not a line from you on my
birthday, the postmistress averred ! I did not burst
out crying, I did not faint— did not do anything
absurd, so far as I know; but I walked back again
without speaking a word ; and with such a tumult
of wretchedness in my heart as you, who know me,
can conceive. And then I shut myself in my own
room to fancy everything that was most tormenting.
Were you, finally, so out of patience with me that

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 235

you had resolved to write to rne no more at all?
Had you gone to Addiscombe, and found no leisure
there to remember my existence? Were you taken
ill, so ill that you could not write? That last idea
made me mad to get off to the railway, and back to
London. Oh, mercy I what a two hours I had of it !
And just when I was at my wits' end, I heard Julia
crying out through the house : ' Mrs. Carlyle, Mrs.
Carlyle! Are you there? Here is a letter for you.'
And so there was after all ! The postmistress had
overlooked it, and had given it to Robert, when he
went afterwards, not knowing that we had been. I
wonder what love-letter was ever received with such
thankfulness ! Oh, my dear ! I am not fit for living
in the world with this organisation. I am as much
broken to pieces by that little accident as if I had
come through an attack of cholera or typhus fever. I can-
not even steady my hand to write decently. But I felt
an irresistible need of thanking you, by return of post.
Yes, I have kissed the dear little card-case ; and now
I will lie down awhile, and try to get some sleep. At
least, to quiet myself, I will try to believe — oh, why can-
not I believe it once for all — that, with all my faults and
follies, I am 'dearer to you than any earthly creature.'"
Hundreds of other cases of love surviving matrimony
might be cited, but we shall only add one more. On the
fifty-fourth anniversary of his marriage, Mr. S. C. Hall
composed the following lines, a copy of which I had the
pleasure of receiving from himself :

Yes ! we go gently down the hill of life,
And thank our God at every step we go ;

The husband-lover and the sweetheart- wife.
Of creeping age what do we care or know ?

Each says to each, " Our fourscore years, thrice told,

Would leave us young : " the soul is never old !

236 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

What is the grave to us ? can it divide
The destiny of two by God made one ?

We step across, and reach the ether side,
To know our blended life is but begun.

These fading faculties are sent to say

Heaven is more near to-day than yesterday.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 237

CHAPTER XXVIII.

" HE WILL NOT SEPARATE US, WE HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY."

To veer how vain ! on, onward strain,
Brave barks ! in light, in darkness too ;

Through winds and tides one compass guides,
To that, and your own selves, be true.

But, O blithe breeze ! and O great seas,
Though ne'er that earliest parting past

On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare.

O bounding breeze, O rushing seas !
At last, at last unite them there !

CLOUGH.

"HE will not separate us, we have been so happy"
— these were the last words of Charlotte Bronte
when, having become Mrs. Nicholls, and having
lived with her husband only nine months, death came
to snatch the cup of domestic felicity trom the lips of
the happy pair. A low wandering delirium came
on. Wakening for an instant from this stupor, she
saw her husband's woe-worn face, and caught the
sound of some murmured words of prayer that God

238 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

would spare her. " Oh ! " she whispered, "I am not
going to die, am I ? He will not separate us, we
have been so happy."

Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, when a girl, loved her family
so dearly that she used to wish that when they
had to die, two large walls might press towards
each other, and crush them all, that they might
die all together, and be spared the misery of parting.
Loving husbands and wives will sympathise with
this wish, for they must sometimes look forward
with dread to the misery of parting from each
other.

To know, to esteem, to love — and then to part,
Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart !

In all ages the anticipation and the reality of
separation has been the greatest and sometimes the
only sorrow in the lot of united couples. Many
very touching inscriptions have been found in the
Catacombs at Rome, but none more touching than
those which record this separation. Here is one of
them. It is in memory of a very young wife,
who must have been married when little more than
a child (fourteen), and then left by her husband, a
soldier, called off probably to serve in the provinces.
He returns to find his poor little wife dead. Was
she martyred, or did she fret herself to death,
or was she carried off with malaria in the Catacombs ?
We know nothing ; but here is her epitaph full of
simple pathos, and warm as with the very life blood :
"To Domina, 375 A.D., my sweetest and most
innocent wife, who lived sixteen years and four months,
and was married two years, with whom I was not
able to live more than six months, during which
time I showed her my love as I felt it ; none else
so loved each other." When Sir Albert Morton

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 239

'died, his wife's grief was such that she shortly
followed him, and was laid by his side. Wottorfs
two lines on the event have been celebrated as con-
taining a volume in seventeen words :

He first deceased ; she for a little tried
To live without him, liked it not, and died.

When Colonel Hutchinson, the noble Common-
wealth officer, felt himself dying, knowing the deep
sorrow which his death would occasion to his wife,
he felt this message, which was conveyed to her:
" Let her, as she is above other women, show
herself on this occasion a good Christian, and above
the pitch of ordinary women." Faithful to his
injunction, instead of lamenting his loss, she indulged
her sorrow in depicting her husband as he had
lived. "They who dote on mortal excellences," she
says, in her Introduction to the Life, " when by the
inevitable fate of all things frail, their adored idols are
taken from them, may let loose the winds of passion to
bring in a flood of sorrow, whose ebbing tides carry
away the dear memory of what they have lost ;
and when comfort is essayed to such mourners,
commonly all objects are removed out of their view
which may with their remembrance renew the grief;
and in time these remedies succeed, and oblivion's
curtain is by degrees drawn over the dead face ;
and things less lovely are liked; while they are not
viewed together with that which was most excellent.
But I, that am under a command not to grieve at
the common rate of desolate women, while I am
studying which way to moderate my woe; and if
it were possible to augment my love, I can for
the present find out none more just to your dear
father, nor consolatory to myself, than the preserva-
tion of his memory, which I need not gild with such

24o HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

flattering commendations as hired preachers do
equally give to the truly and titularly honourable.
A naked undressed narrative, speaking the simple
truth of him, will deck him with more substantial
glory than all the panegyrics the best pens
could ever consecrate to the virtues of the best
men."

When death removed Stella from Swift, and he was
left alone to think of what he had lost, he described
her as "the truest, most virtuous, and valuable
friend that I, or perhaps any other person, was
ever blessed with." Henceforward he must strive and
suffer alone. The tenderness, of which his attach-
ment to Stella had been the strongest symptom,
deeply as it had struck its roots into his nature,
withered into cynicism. But a lock of Stella's hair
is said to have been found in Swift's desk when
his own fight was ended, and on the paper in which
it was wrapped were written words that have
become proverbial for the burden of pathos that their
forced brevity seems to hide — " Only a woman's
hair." It is for each reader to read his own meaning
into them. Dr. Johnson's wife was querulous, exact-
ing, old, and the reverse of beautiful, and yet
a considerable time after her death he said that
ever since the sad event he seemed to himself
broken off from mankind ; a kind of solitary wanderer
in the wild of life, without any direction or fixed
point of view ; a gloomy gazer on the world to
which he had little relation. After recording some
good resolution in his Journal he was in the
habit since her death of writing after it his wife's
name — "Tetty." It is only a word; but how
eloquent it is ! When a certain Mr. Edwards asked
him if he had ever known what it was to have
a wife, Johnson replied : " Sir, I have known what
it was to have a wife, and " (in a solemn, tender,

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 241

faltering tone) "I have known what it was to
lose a 'wife. I had almost broke my heart."
Nor did he allow himself to forget this experience.
To New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Day,
and his own birthday, which he set apart as sacred
cays dedicated to solemn thought and high com-
nmnion with his own soul, he added the day of his
wife's death.

Nor are such separations less felt in humble life.
A year or two ago the newspapers in describing a
colliery accident related that upon the tin water-bottle
of one of the dead men brought out of the Seaham
Pit there was scratched, evidently with a nail, the
following letter to his wife: "DEAR MARGARET, —
There was forty of us altogether at 7 a.m., some
was singing hymns, but my thought was on my little
Michael I thought that him and I would meet in
heaven at the same time. Oh, dear wife, God
save you and the children, and pray for myself.
Dear wife, farewell. My last thoughts are about
you and the children. Be sure and learn the children
to pray for me. Oh, what a terrible position we are
in. — MICHAEL SMITH, 54 Henry Street." The little
Michael he refers to was his child whom he had
left at home ill. The lad died on the day of the
explosion.

A writer on The Orkneys and Shetland tells the
following. A native of Hoy went one day to his
minister and said, "Oh! sir, but the ways of Provi-
dence are wonderful ! I thought I had met with a sair
misfortune when I lost baith my coo and my wife at
aince over the cliff, twa months sin; but I gaed over
to Graemsay, and I hae gotten a far better coo and a
far bonnier wife."

That a wife is not always so easily replaced is
evident from the following letter which appeared in
the Belfast papers: " SIR, — I request permission to

242 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

inform your readers of the fair sex that I have just
received a letter from a young man residing in a
rapidly-rising town of a few months' growth, and
terminus of several railways, in one of the Western
States of America, telling me that he has lost his
wife, and would wish to get another one — a nice
little Irish girl, just like the other one; that she
should be between ' twenty and twenty -five years of
age, of good habits, of good forme, vertchaus, and a
Protestant.' My correspondent, who is a perfect
stranger to me, informs me that he is 28 years of age,
and 'ways' 150 Ib. ; that he is a carpenter by
trade, and owns a farm of 65 acres, and that he
can give the best of references. I am writing- to
him for his references and his photograph, and also
for a photograph and description of his late wife, on
receipt of which I will address you again. — VERE FOSTER,
Belfast, Jan. 5, 1883."

This poor, uneducated carpenter was so happy
with his nice little Irish girl that when taken from
him he could not help trying to get another one
just like her, and sends more than three thousand
miles for a chip of the old block. If any blame him
for seeking for a second wife, let them reflect on the
awful solitude of a backwoods settlement when the
prairie flower represented by a nice little Irish girl
had faded and died. By desiring to marry again
he paid the highest compliment to hisfirst wife, for
he showed that she made him a happy man.

It is sometimes said that the happiest days of a
man's life is the day of his wedding, and the day of
his wife's funeral. And the Quarterly Review, in
an article on Church Bells, related that one Thomas
Nash in 1813 bequeathed fifty pounds a year to
the ringers of the Abbey Church at Westminster
" on condition of their ringing on the whole peal of
bells, with clappers muffled, various solemn and doleful

l HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 243

changes on the i4th of May in every year, being
the anniversary of my wedding-day : and also on
the anniversary of my decease to ring a grand bob-
major, and merry, mirthpul peals, unmufHed, in
joyful commemoration of my happy release from
domestic tyranny and wretchedness,"

As a rule, however, no matter how much a
husband and wife have tormented each other, the
separation when it comes is very painful. How
true to life is Trollope's description of the effect
of Mrs. Proudie's death upon the bishop. "A
wonderful silence had come upon him which for
the time almost crushed him. He would never hear
that well-known voice again ! He was free now.
Even in his misery — for he was very miserable — he
could not refrain from telling himself that. No one
could now press uncalled for into his study, con-
tradict him in the presence of those before whom
he was bound to be authoritative, and rob him of
all his dignity. There was no one else of whom he
was afraid. She had at least kept him out of the
hands of other tyrants. He was now his own
master — and there was a feeling — I may not call
it of relief, for as yet there was more of pain in
it than of satisfaction — a feeling as though he had
escaped from an old trouble at a terrible cost, of
which he could not as yet calculate the amount. . . .
She had in some ways, and at certain periods of
his life, been very good to him. She had kept his
money for him and made things go straight* when
they had been poor. His interests had always
been her interests. Without her he would never
have been a bishop. So, at least, he told himself
now, and so told himself probably with truth. She
had been very careful of his children. She had
never been idle. She had never been fond of
pleasure. She had neglected no acknowledged duty.

244 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

He did not doubt that she was now on her way
to heaven. He took his hands down from his head,
and clasping them together, said a little prayer.
It may be doubted whether he quite knew for what
he was praying. The idea of praying for her soul,
now that she was dead, would have scandalised
him. He certainly was not praying for his own
soul. I think he was praying that God might save
him from being glad that his wife was dead. . . .
But yet his thoughts were very tender to her.
Nothing reopens the springs of love so fully as
absence, and no absence so thoroughly as that which
must needs be endless. We want that which we
have not; and especially that which we can never
have. She had told him in the very last moments
of her presence with him that he was wishing that
she were dead, and he had made her no reply.
At the moment he had felt, with savage anger,
that such was his wish. Her words had now come
to pass, and he was a widower; and he assured
himself that he would give all that he possessed
in the world to bring her back again."

Richard Cobden once asked in reference to a famous
and successful but unscrupulous statesman, "How will
it be with him when all is retrospect?" Husband and
wife, how will it be when death has separated you, and
your married life is retrospect ?

Many a man or woman, going on from day to
day in the faithful performance of duty, without
any sweet token of approval to cheer the sometimes
weary path, would find it act as the very wine
of life could he or she only hear by anticipation
some few of the passionate words of appreciation
or regret that will be spoken when the faithful heart,
stilled for ever, can no longer be movedx by the
tone of loving commendation. Do not in this
way let us keep all the good hermetically sealed

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 245

up till the supreme touch of death shall force it
open.

Alas ! how often at our hearths we see —
And by our side — angels about to be !

But somehow the selfish absorption of life acts as a
soporific to our truer sense, and our " eyes are holden
that we do not know them," until, alas ! it is too late,
and they have " passed out of our sight."

Could ye come back to me, Douglas, Douglas,
In the old likeness that I knew,

I would be so faithful, so loving, Douglas-
Douglas, Douglas ! tender and true !

Never a scornful word should grieve ye,
Pd smile on ye, sweet as the angels do ;

Sweet as your smile on me shone ever —
Douglas, Douglas ! tender and true.

" The grave buries every error, covers every defect,
extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful
bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender
recollections. Who can look down upon the grave
of an enemy and not feel a compunctious throb that
he should have warred with the poor handful of
dust that lies mouldering before him ? " If the love
that is lavished on the graves of dead friends were
bestowed on living darlings in equal measure, family
life would be a different thing- from what it some-
times is.

As George IV. put on the statue of George III.
"pater optimus," best of fathers, though he had
embittered his father's life, so many a husband
tries to relieve his remorse by extravagantly

246 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

praising the wife who when alive never received
any kindness from him. What is hell but truths
known too late ? and the surviving one of a married
pair has to the end of life, if duty in matrimony
has been neglected, the incessant wish that some-
thing were otherwise than it had been. The one
regret to avoid is, that when married life is
over, over for ever, to the survivor should come
the unutterable but saddening thought, that now,
in the late autumn of life, when experience
can be no longer of any possible value, he
or she understands, at last understands, all that
the chivalry of holy matrimony implies and claims
on both sides, in manly forbearance, in delicate
though tf ulness, in loving courtesy. Too late
now !

Over the triple doorways of the cathedral of
Milan there are three inscriptions spanning the
splendid arches. Over one is carved a beautiful
wreath of roses, and underneath is the legend,
" All that which pleases is only for a moment. "
Over the other is a sculptured cross, and there are
the words, " All that which troubles is but for a
moment." Underneath the great central entrance
in the main aisle is the inscription, "That only
is which is eternal." Make the most of the
happiness of your marriage, and the least of its
vexations, for it is a relation that will not last
long.

Rcspice finem> the old monks used to say in
their meditations on life. And if we would
behave rightly in married life we must "consider
the end." Affections are never deepened and refined
until the possibility of loss is felt. " Whatsoever
thou takest in hand, remember the end, and
thou shalt never do amiss." Spare all hard words,
omit ail slights, for before long there will be a

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. 247

hearse standing at your door that will take away
the best friend that you have on earth — a good
wife. Then the silence will be appalling; the
vacancies ghastly. Reminiscences will rush on the
heart like a mountain current over which a cloud
has burst. Her jewels, her books, her pictures,
her dresses will be put into a trunk and the lid
will come down with a heavy thud, as much as
to say — "Dead! The morning dead. The night
dead. The world dead." Oh! man, if in that hour
you think of any unkind word uttered, you will be
willing to pay in red coin of blood every drop from
your heart, if you could buy it back. Kindly words,
sympathising attentions, watchfulness against wound-
ing the sensitiveness of a wife or husband — it is
the omission of these things which is irreparable:
irreparable, when we look to the purest enjoyment
which might have been our own ; irreparable when we
consider the compunction which belongs to deeds of
love not done.

Carlyle never meant to be unkind to his wife, but in
his late years he thought that he had sacrificed her
health and happiness in his absorption in his work;
that he had been negligent, inconsiderate, and selfish.
"For many years after she had left him," writes Mr.
Froude, "when he passed the spot where she was last
seen alive, he would bare his gray head in the wind
and rain — his features wrung with unavailing sorrow.
* Oh ! ' he often said to me, ' if I could but see her for
five minutes to assure her that I had really cared for
her throughout all that! But she never knew it, she
never knew it ! "

Sorrow, however, may teach us wisdom, and if we
study patience in the school of Christ much comfort
will from thence be derived. And much hope too.
He is the resurrection and the life, and if we believe
in Him we believe that there is a Friend in whose

248 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED,

arms we ourselves shall fall asleep, and to whose love
we may trust for the reunion, sooner or later, of the
severed links of sacred human affection.

And in that perfect Marriage Day

All earth's lost love shall live once more ;

All lack and loss shall pass away,
And all find all not found before ;

Till all the worlds shall live and glow

In that great love's great overflow.

IX>NDON AND GLASGOW: COLLINS CLEAR-TYPE TRESS.

Collins' 7fet Modern Fiction

(/« Great Britain Only)

WITH FRONTISPIECE AND DESIGNED
TITLE PAGE

EACH VOLUME HAS AN ATTRACTIVE COLOURED WRAPPER

i The Great Refusal . . . MAXWELL GRAY

3 The Brown Eyes of Mary . . MADAME ALBANESI

4 The Golden Butterfly . . . BESANT AND RICE

6 A Weaver of Webs . . . JOHN OXENHAM

7 Saints in Society . . MRS. BAILLIE-SAUNDERS

8 The Wreck of the Grosvenor . W. CLARK RUSSELL

9 Comin' Thro' the Rye . . . HELEN MATHERS

10 The Deemster ..... HALL CAINE

11 The Happy Valley . . . . B. M. CROKER
13 New Arabian Nights . . R. L. STEVENSON
15 American Wives and English Husbands

GERTRUDE ATHERTON

17 Dear Lady Disdain . . . JUSTIN MACARTHY

1 8 The Tempestuous Petticoat . . ROBERT BARK

19 A Ward of the Gol'den Gate . . BRET HARTE
21 Under the Greenwood Tree . . THOMAS HARDY

23 The Firm of Girdlestone . . A. CONAN DOYLE

24 Kilmeny .... WILLIAM BLACK

25 The School for Saints . . JOHN OLIVER HOBBES

26 Ready-Money Mortiboy . . BESANT AND RICE

27 Nature's Comedian . . . W. E. NORRIS

28 The Luck of the Fairfaxes . . KATHERINE TYNAN

29 Comethup ...... TOM GALLON

30 A Sack of Shakings . . . FRANK T. BULLEN

31 Red Spider . S. BARING-GOULD

32 Pretty Polly Pennington . . MADAME ALBANESI

33 Genevra ...... C. MARRIOTT

35 The Locum Tenens . . VICTOR L. WHITECHURCH

36 A Princess of Thule . . . WILLIAM BLACK

37 Daireen . . . F. FRANKFORT MOORE

38 A Blind Bird's Nest . . . MARY FINDLATER

39 A Waif of the Plains .... BRET HARTE

40 Terence B. M. CROKER

41 The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton WILLIAM BLACK

42 Brendle .... MARMADUKE PICKTHALL

43 Eve S. BARING-GOULD

44 How to be Happy though Married REV. E. J. HARDY

45 Macleod of Dare . . . WILLIAM BLACK

46 Loaves and Fishes . . . BKRNAKD CAPES

Collins* fd. net Modem Fiction

47 My Little Girl

48 The Light of Scarthey .

49 The Amazing Duke

50 Diana Harrington .

51 Sister Anne .

52 A Gentleman of London

53 An English Girl in Paris

54 Despair's Last Journey

55 Running Water

56 John Holdsworth— Chief Mate

57 The Ivory Gate

BESANT AND RICK
EGERTON CASTLE
SIR WM. MAGNAY, BART.
B. M. CROKER
. MADAME ALBANESI
MORICE GERARD
CONSTANCE E. MAUD
D. C. MURRAY
A. E. W. MASON
W. CLARK RUSSELL
.SIR WALTER BESANT

58 The Tempting of Paul Chester ALICE AND CLAUDE ASKEW

59 A Royal Indiscretion

60 The Cattle-Baron's Daughter

61 A Breach of Promise

62 Harum Scarum

63 The Journal of a Jealous Woman

64 The Fowler ....

65 Count Bunker

66 Robert Orange

67 The Parish Nurse

68 Eve and the Law

69 The Path of a Star

70 The Shadow of a Crime

71 George V., Our Sailor King

72 My French Friends

73 Pretty Miss Neville

74 Sicilian Lovers

75 Christine of the Hills

76 Grand Babylon Hotel

77 A Prince of Lovers

78 The Whip Hand

79 The Suspicions of Ermengarde

80 The Column

8 1 Cynthia

82 Jennifer Pontefracte

83 Molly Bawn .

84 A Sower of Wheat

85 2835 Mayfair

86 Two Little Wooden Shoes

87 A Bride from the Bush

RICHARD MARSH
HAROLD BINDLOSS
LADY TROUBRIDGE
. ESM& STUART
. PERCY WHITE
BEATRICE HARRADEN
J. STORER CLOUSTON
JOHN OLIVER HOBBES
MARY E. MANN

ALICE AND CLAUDE ASKEW
MRS EVERARD COTES

^Sara Jeannette Duncan)

HALL CAINE
ROBERT HUDSON
CONSTANCE E. MAUD
B. M. CROKER
DOUGLAS SLADEN
MAX PEMBERTON
ARNOLD BENNETT
. SIR WTM. MAGNAY, BART.
KEBLE HOWARD
MAXWELL GRAY
CHARLES MARRIOTT
. LEONARD MERRICK
ALICE AND CLAUDE ASKEW
MRS HUNGERFORD
. HAROLD BINDLOSS
. FRANK RICHARDSON
OUIDA
ERNEST W. HORNUNG

Further Volumes in Preparation.

London and Glasgow : Collins' Clear-Type Press.

Illustrated Pocket Classics

Cloth, 1 /- net. Leather, gilt edges, 2/- net

(In Great Britain only)
THIN PAPER EDITIONS AT POPULAR PRICES

2000 New Illustrations

LIST OF

AINSWORTH, H.

74 Windsor Castle
200 The Tower of London

A KEMPIS, THOMAS

98 The Imitation of Christ

ANDERSEN, HANS

175 Fairy Tales

ARNOLD, MATTHEW
138 Poems

AURELIUS, MARCUS
82 The Meditations of

AUSTEN, JANE

53 Sense and Sensibility
103 Pride and Prejudice
190 Emma
193 Mansfield Park

BACON, FRANCIS
167 Essays

BARHAM, REV. R. H.
71 The Ingoldsby Legends

BEACONSFIELD, LORD
183 Vivian Grey

BLACKMORE, R. D.

176 Lorna Doone

BORROW, GEORGE
141 Lavengro

BRONTE, ANNE

97 Tenant of Wildfell Hall

BRONTE, CHARLOTTE

7 Shirley
ii Jane Eyre
64 Villette"

TITLES

BRONTE, EMILY
31 Wuthering Heights

BRONTE, THE SISTERS
91 Agnes Grey, The* Pro-
fessor, and Poems

BROWTNING, MRS E. B.

67 Poems — Series I.

127 Poems — Series II.

BROWNING, ROBERT
156 Poetical Works of

BUNYAN JOHN

24 The Pilgrim's Progress

BURNS, ROBERT
164 Poetical Works of

CARLYLE, THOMAS
61 Heroes and Hero

Worship
109 Sartor Resartus

114 French Revolution, I.

115 Do. —II.
155 Past and Present

CARROLL, LEWIS

8 1 Alice in Wonderland

COLLINS, WILKIE

1 8 The Woman in White
20 No Name
130 The Moonstone

COOPER, FENIMORE

134 The Deerslayer
1 88 The Pathfinder

CRAIK, MRS

5 John Halifax, Gentle-
So A Noble Life [man
137 A Life for a Life"

COLLINS' ILLUSTRATED POCKET CLASSICS

DARWIN, CHARLES
69 Voyage of the Beagle
149 On the Origin of Species

DAUDET, ALPHONSE
182 Tartarin of Tarascon

DE QUINCEY, THOMAS
75 The Confessions of an
Opium Eater

DE WINDT, HARRY
129 Through Savage Europe

DICKENS, CHARLES
i David Copperfield
14 Great Expectations
29 Barnaby Rudge
33 Oliver Twist

35 A Tale of Two Cities

36 The Old Curiosity Shop

37 Nicholas Nickleby

38 Pickwick Papers

39 Sketches by Boz

40 Dombey and Son

41 American Notes

42 Hard Times

43 A Child's History of

England

44 Christmas Books

45 Reprinted Pieces

46 Martin Chuzzlewit

47 Bleak House
^48 Little Dorrit

49 Master Humphrey's

Clock, etc.

50 Stories and Sketches
73 Our Mutual Friend

154 The Uncommercial
Traveller

DODD, WILLIAM
169 The Beauties of Shake-
speare

DUMAS, ALEXANDRE
62 The Three Musketeers
123 Twenty Years After
132 Count of Monte-Cristo
(Vol. I.)

DUMAS — Continued
133 Count of Monte-Cristo

(Vol. II.)

1 60 The Black Tulip
165 Marguerite de Valois
173 Vicomte de Bragelonne
178 Louise de la Valliere

185 The Man in the Iron

Mask

199 The Forty-five Guards-
men

ELIOT, GEORGE
3 Adam ^ede
13 The Mill on the Floss
19 Silas Marner
32 Scenes of Clerical Life
68 Romola
96 Felix Holt

EMERSON, R. W.

99 Essays and Represen-
tative Men

FROUDE, J. A.
125 Short Studies

GASKELL, MRS

54 North and South
57 Cranford

1 86 Mary Barton

GOLDSMITH, OLIVER
94 The Vicar of Wake-
field

GRANT, JAMES
122 The Romance of War

GRIMM BROS.
143 Fairy Tales

HAWTHORNE, N.
17 The Scarlet Letter
28 The House of the Seven
Gables

HAZLITT, WILLIAM
172 Table Talk

HOLMES, O. W.

59 The Autocrat of the
Breakfast Table

COLLINS' ILLUSTRATED POCKET CLASSICS

HOLMES — Continued

92 The Professor at the

Breakfast Table
113 The Poet at the Break-
fast Table
124 Elsie Venner

HUGHES, THOMAS

8 Tom Brown's Schooldays

HUGO, VICTOR
128 The Hunchback of

Notre-Dame
142 Les Miserables
162 The Toilers of the Sea
202 Ninety-Three

IRVING, WASHINGTON

107 The Sketch Book

KEATS, JOHN
179 Poetical Works of

KINGSLEY, HENRY
116 Ravenshoe
140 The Recollections of
Geoffry Hamlyn

KINGSLEY, CHARLES
4 Two Years Ago
6 Westward Ho !
86 Hypatia

89 Hereward the Wake
1 06 Alton Locke

1 08 The Heroes
161 Yeast

LAMB, CHARLES

56 The Essays of Elia

LAMB, CHAS. AND MARY

76 Tales from Shakespeare

LEVER, CHARLES

15 Charles O'Malley
148 Harry Lorrequer

LLOYD, ALBERT B.
135 Uganda to Khartoum

LONGFELLOW, H. W.

65 Poems

LOVER, SAMUEL
60 Handy Andy

LYTTON, LORD

27 The Last of the Barons

55 Last Days of Pompeii

77 Rienzi

87 Harold
126 The Caxtons
152 Eugene Aram
191 My Novel

MACAULAY, LORD

118 Historical Essays

119 Miscellaneous Essays

MARRYAT, CAPTAIN

84 Mr Midshipman Easy

195 The Children of the

New Forest

MELVILLE, HERMAN
146 Typee

MELVILLE, WHYTE

85 The Gladiators
105 The Interpreter
145 The Queen's Maries

196 Cerise

MILLER, HUGH
104 My Schools and School-
masters

MORRIS, WILLIAM

197 The Life and Death oi

Jason

OLIPHANT, MRS
1 02 Miss Marjoribanks

PALGRAVE, F. T.

95 The Golden Treasury

PAYN, JAMES
no Lost Sir Massingberd

POE, EDGAR ALLAN
201 Tales of Mystery and
Imagination

PROCTER, ADELAIDE

72 Legends and Lyric**

COLLINS' ILLUSTRATED POCKET CLASSICS

READE, CHARLES

9 It is never too Late to
Mend

21 Cloister and the Hearth
52 Hard Cash

136 Peg Woffington and
Christie Johnstone

150 Love Me Little, Love
Me Long

170 Put Yourself in His Place

RUSKIN, JOHN

70 Sesame and Lilies and
The Political Econ-
omy of Art

78 Unto this Last, and
The Two Paths

SCOTT, SIR WALTER
2 Kenilworth
12 The Talisman

22 Ivanhoe
58 Waverley

63 Heart of Midlothian

90 Old Mortality
101 Poetical Works
112 Bride of Lammermoor
117 The Fair Maid of Perth
131 Guy Mannering
139 Rob Roy
153 The Monastery
157 The Abbot
163 The Antiquary
1 68 Redgauntlet
174 Fortunes of Nigel
177 Woodstock
1 80 The Pirate
187 Quentin Durward
194 Peveril of the Peak

SHAKESPEARE, WM.
189 Tragedies

SLADEM, DOUGLAS

The Japs at Home

SOUTHEY, ROBERT
in The Life of Nelson

TENNYSON, LORD

25 Poems

THACKERAY, W. M.
23 Henry Esmond
34 Vanity Fair
66 The Newcomes
83 The Virginians

1 20 Adventures of Philip

121 Pendennis

144 Yellowplush Papers
151 Four Georges

158 Christmas Books
171 Level the Widower
181 Barry Lyndon, etc.
184 Book of Snobs

192 The Great Hoggart;

Diamond
198 Paris Sketch Bool

TROLLOPE, ANTHONY
79 Barchester Towers
100 Framley Parsonage
147 Orley Farm

159 The Claverings

WALTON, IZAAK

88 The Compleat Angle

WOOD, MRS HENRY
10 East Lynne
1 6 The Channings

26 Mrs Halliburton's

Troubles

30 Danesbury House
51 Verner's Pride

YONGE, C. M.

93 The Heir of Redch
1 66 The Dove in the Eag]

Nest

LONDON AND GLASGOW

COLLINS' CLEAR-TYPE PRESS

THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW

AN INITIAL FINE OP 25 CENTS

WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN
THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH
DAY AND TO SI.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY
OVERDUE.

"' -'

SSEl

OCT 2 R ]ot.

RECTD LD1

JUL151957

.cCElVED

NOV 1 6

o a

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

.